Ms Humphreys cited Ms Connolly\u2019s alignment with former MEPs Clare Daly and Mick Wallace.<\/p>\n
The Fine Gael candidate said there was a \u201creal fear\u201d that if Russia completed its aims in Ukraine, the country would move to invade other countries in eastern Europe.<\/p>\n
Ms Connolly rejected the accusations, saying she was \u201con record repeatedly for condemning Russia\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the politics of fear and allegations made that are utterly without substance,\u201d Ms Connolly said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have the politics of smear, of making allegations that are unfounded without having any substantive debate on the issues.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Her comments come after commentator and former Fine Gael minister Ivan Yates said if he was running the Humphreys campaign he would \u201csmear the bejaysus out of\u201d Ms Connolly.<\/p>\n
Ms Humphreys accused Ms Connolly of \u201cinsulting\u201d Ireland\u2019s allies, including Germany, France, the US and the UK.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat doesn\u2019t go without consequences,\u201d Ms Humphreys said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re a president of this country, you have to meet other leaders and other heads of state, and how are you going to speak to them? How are you going to talk to them?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Responding, Ms Connolly said Ms Humphreys was \u201cinaccurate\u201d and she criticised France, the UK and the US due to their arms industry.<\/p>\n
![\"Speaking](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/4817880_4_articleinline_IRISH_20President_20_2013245190.jpg\" "\\"Speaking")
Speaking after the conclusion of the debate, Ms Connolly said she believed Fine Gael were worried about her campaign.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were so many things said there that I\u2019ve insulted people. I don\u2019t recall ever insulting anybody in my life,\u201d Ms Connolly added.<\/p>\n
The debate also returned to Ms Connolly\u2019s hiring of a woman who was previously jailed for a firearms offence, with Ms Humphreys calling on her to answer questions.<\/p>\n
Ms Connolly said allegations were being made against her that were inaccurate.<\/p>\n
She said Ursula N\u00ed Shionnain was signed into the D\u00e1il every day by her, and this was in accordance with the rules.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a woman who served her term in prison, this is a success story,\u201d Ms Connolly said.<\/p>\n
Speaking after the conclusion of the debate, Ms Connolly said she believed Fine Gael was worried about her campaign.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re going down the road of throwing as much as they can. They\u2019re not looking at whether those questions are based on any reality or substance,\u201d Ms Connolly said.<\/p>\n
However, Ms Humphreys rejected assertions she was involved in a smear campaign, saying she has not listened to Mr Yates.<\/p>\n
Pressed on this, given her combative approach to the debate, Ms Humphreys said there were \u201clegitimate questions\u201d to be asked of Ms Connolly.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re entitled to be asked these questions about your judgement and Catherine\u2019s entitled to be asked them and I\u2019m not doing in in a nasty way. They\u2019re very plain, simple questions.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Catherine Connolly has accused Heather Humphreys of using the \u201cpolitics of fear\u201d against her, but the Fine Gael…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":118298,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5,59,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-118297","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-featured-news","11":"tag-featurednews","12":"tag-headlines","13":"tag-latest-news","14":"tag-latestnews","15":"tag-main-news","16":"tag-mainnews","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-presidential-election","19":"tag-top-stories","20":"tag-topstories","21":"tag-world","22":"tag-world-news","23":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118297\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}