{"id":134711,"date":"2025-10-20T21:15:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T21:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/134711\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T21:15:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T21:15:08","slug":"fine-gael-intensifies-attacks-as-connolly-says-party-is-absolutely-terrified-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/134711\/","title":{"rendered":"Fine Gael intensifies attacks as Connolly says party is \u2018absolutely terrified\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fine Gael<\/a> intensified its attacks on Catherine Connolly<\/a> on Monday as both candidates in the presidential election prepare for the final television debate of the campaign on RT\u00c9 on Tuesday evening.<\/p>\n

Despite a backlash from several quarters, including pointed remarks from Minister for Justice Jim O\u2019Callaghan<\/a>, Fine Gael continued to accuse Ms Connolly of \u201chypocrisy\u201d for appearing for banks in home repossession cases while being critical of the banks and campaigning for an end to evictions.<\/p>\n

Fine Gael circulated reports from local media in Galway when Ms Connolly, then a city councillor, was fiercely critical of the housing crisis, the then government and the banks. <\/p>\n

The party said this was a time when she was employed as a barrister by banks in home repossession cases. Ms Connolly has said she did \u201call kinds of work\u201d but refused to give any details of the cases she was involved in.<\/p>\n

Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill<\/a> questioned why Ms Connolly had not declared her interest in such cases when she spoke about the subject in the D\u00e1il.<\/p>\n

However, some backbenchers are privately questioning the aggressive stance from Fine Gael in the face of a seemingly near-insurmountable gap. One argued that \u201cthere\u2019s enough division in Irish politics\u201d already, adding that a video put up by Fine Gael in relation to Ms Connolly\u2019s barrister work was \u201can American-style piece and it\u2019s unsavoury \u2013 and we shouldn\u2019t be doing that\u201d.<\/p>\n

In an interview with her local radio station Shannonside Northern Sound, Heather Humphreys<\/a> said: \u201cI am not attacking Catherine\u2019s work as a barrister, I am highlighting her hypocrisy as a politician. <\/p>\n

\u201cShe criticised the same banks that she repossessed homes for. I\u2019m pointing out the hypocrisy of working for the banks in the courts to repossess houses and saying something different in the council chamber in Galway or in the D\u00e1il chamber.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Connolly \u2018disappointed\u2019 campaign not focused on \u2018vision for presidency\u2019 and says Fine Gael are \u2018terrified\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

But Ms Connolly hit back at Fine Gael, and claimed the party was deploying these tactics because it was \u201cabsolutely terrified\u201d of her campaign. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think they\u2019re absolutely terrified, and that they would resort to such tactics just reflects on their terror and their fear of the change in Ireland. And they are utterly out of touch,\u201d Ms Connolly said.<\/p>\n

She called on Ms Humphreys to withdraw comments that the Fine Gael candidate had made over the weekend, when Ms Humphreys implied that Ms Connolly had made money out of people\u2019s misfortune. Ms Connolly said home repossessions after the financial crash were the consequence of government policies. <\/p>\n

\u201cI saw packed courts, I saw the consequences of government policies, saving the banks. I saw people being evicted from their houses, directly consequent on government policy. I saw county registrars bent over backwards not to put people out of their houses, and finding every possible way to avoid that,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis Government and previous governments have to look at what they did. And people had to emigrate, people committed suicide, directly consequent on government policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the campaign trail Ms Humphreys was put under pressure regarding actions taken by Cootehill credit union, where she was a manager. She said such actions were taken as a matter of last resort and that nobody lost their house arising from <\/b>them while she worked in the credit union. <\/p>\n

Ms Connolly is entering the final days of the campaign as the clear front-runner. While Ms Humphreys said that while she is the \u201cunderdog\u201d she \u201cabsolutely\u201d still believes she can win the presidential election<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Ms Connolly, meanwhile, has described how she believes she represents a \u201cmovement\u201d that exists beyond her.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so this movement will continue after me, and I\u2019m delighted that I have united people together across parties and none to stand together,\u201d Ms Connolly said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fine Gael intensified its attacks on Catherine Connolly on Monday as both candidates in the presidential election prepare…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":134712,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,1921,18,13,14,553,6,555,19,17,5002,26735,11,12,15,16,5,59,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-134711","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-catherine-connolly","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-fine-gael","15":"tag-headlines","16":"tag-heather-humphreys","17":"tag-ie","18":"tag-ireland","19":"tag-jennifer-carroll-macneill","20":"tag-jim-ocallaghan","21":"tag-latest-news","22":"tag-latestnews","23":"tag-main-news","24":"tag-mainnews","25":"tag-news","26":"tag-presidential-election","27":"tag-top-stories","28":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134711","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=134711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}