Day 16

The day started with preparation for the morning press conference to focus on what should be the real question of the campaign - how does so-called alternative plan to account for the €5.8 billion they have promised over the last two weeks even tough their official manifestos are costed for €2.7 billion.

Brian Cowen, Seamus Brennan and myself got the job of fronting the press conference. Brian was in such flying form that Seamus and I had pretty much nothing to do. He gets very passionate about the sorts of irresponsible and uncosted promises the Opposition have been making.

The message was simple - Fianna Fáil has put forward a carefully costed programme which has been in the public domain for four weeks and has not been challenged. He in turn challenged the media to ask the hard questions about the alternative's manifesto.

Labour and Fine Gael have put forward a programme costing €2.8 billion of joint promises. Since the beginning of the campaign Fine Gael have put forward a programme promising a further €1.9 billion. Labour also have put forward a campaign costing €1.7 billion. This simply means that FG and Lab have already burst their framework for the budget. Hardly sound economic management.
FG and Lab now have to tell us how they intend to pay for the extra promises. will it be by increasing the deficit and debt or by breaking their promises. If so which ones?

If FG/Lab want to portray themselves as responsible and competent, as a suitable alternative to a Government who has created the period of greatest economic growth in Ireland's history, then the media must give them the same level of scrutiny. It would be irresponsible to allow an opposition get into power on a campaign based on change for the sake of change without assessing their economic competence!

FG is promising 2,300 extra beds. Enda Kenny said at his first and only press conference he couldn't deliver on and have only allowed for 500 in their plan.

They promise 2000 extra Gardaí - but on closer scrutiny, 1,000 are not provided for.

Maybe there will be equal scrutiny and questioning over the next ten days to ensure the public has all the information needed to make informed decisions in the election.

The rest of the day was spent finalising the details of the last ten days, singing off on literature , canvass and our Get Out to Vote campaign.

After yet another Today FM discussion on Broadband (Matt Cooper says his listeners love it - it's the age profile of his audience.) Then back to Navan for a canvass.

During the day Sinn Féin launched a maliciously 'leaked' draft HSE document purporting to show a 'cutback' of €5million in hospital services in the North East. Perhaps when they actually read the document they will realise that what the document shows is a net increase of €8 million in expenditure and a substantial increase in staff and improvements to services. The truth is that FF is, and always has been committed to the provision of world class services to the people of Meath and have invested heavily in the hospital. There will be more to follow on this issue in the coming days you can be certain.