{"id":512353,"date":"2025-10-19T17:10:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T17:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/512353\/"},"modified":"2025-10-19T17:10:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T17:10:12","slug":"micheal-martin-criticises-catherine-connollys-eu-stance-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/512353\/","title":{"rendered":"Miche\u00e1l Martin criticises Catherine Connolly\u2019s EU stance \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin<\/a> has criticised Independent presidential <\/a>candidate Catherine Connolly<\/a>\u2019s stance on the European Union<\/a> (EU), while acknowledging the presidential election campaign has been a \u201csetback\u201d for Fianna F\u00e1il.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to start calling out people who say \u2018Oh, but I\u2019m pro-EU\u2019 as they constantly announce and re-announce the supposed end of Irish sovereignty,” he said in an address to the crowd at Fianna F\u00e1il<\/a>\u2019s Theobald Wolfe Tone Commemoration at Bodenstown Graveyard in Co Kildare.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re not pro-EU if you stand against every treaty which has built the union over the last quarter of a century.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re not pro-EU if you constantly say that it\u2019s destroying our neutrality and is in the hands of a military-industrial complex.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2022, Ms Connolly told the D\u00e1il she \u201cproudly\u201d canvassed against the Lisbon and Nice treaties due to concerns about \u201cthe militarisation of Europe\u201d.<\/p>\n

But during RT\u00c9 Radio\u2019s This Week debate on October 12th, she said it was \u201cabsolutely wrong\u201d to say she had voted against \u201cevery European treaty\u201d.<\/p>\n

When asked by reporters if his comments were directed at Ms Connolly, the Taoiseach said: \u201cWell, I think Catherine is in that camp. There\u2019s no question about that, along with Sinn F\u00e9in and along with other parties on the left who constantly, first of all, voted against European Union Treaties, but also talk about Europe as if it\u2019s a warmongerer, or if it\u2019s a military-industrial complex.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople need to be unequivocal about how beneficial membership of the European Union has been to this country.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a recent Irish Times\/Ipsos B&A opinion poll<\/a>, support for Fianna F\u00e1il dropped to 17 per cent while the Taoiseach\u2019s personal rating has fallen by 11 percentage points to 33 per cent, the lowest level in more than five years. <\/p>\n

When asked about this, the Taoiseach reflected on the polls conducted before the last general election. <\/p>\n

\u201cEvery one of them had Fianna F\u00e1il in third place … we came first in the general election. Maybe everybody should reflect on that reality. Polls are not general elections. There\u2019s no correlation between the presidential election and a general election. We know that from the past.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Ms Connolly has described comments made by her rival for the presidency as \u201ca new low\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Independent candidate was in her native Galway on Sunday and was asked about an interview with the Sunday Independent in which Heather Humphreys<\/a> said she \u201cnever tried to make money out of people\u2019s misfortune\u201d, referring to Ms Connolly\u2019s time working as a barrister during the economic crash.<\/p>\n

Ms Connolly said she had been \u201cover and over\u201d the issue, adding: \u201cFor a candidate for the presidency to misuse that in the way she has, it\u2019s just a new low.\u201d<\/p>\n

When previously asked about this period in her career, Ms Connolly has pointed to the \u201ccab-rank rule\u201d, which obliges barristers to accept instructions in any case in their area of practice.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, Minister for Education Helen McEntee<\/a> doubled down on Fine Gael<\/a>\u2019s sustained attacks on Ms Connolly, describing her as a hypocrite who had been \u201cdodging questions around her role in repossessing people\u2019s homes\u201d when she worked as a barrister.<\/p>\n

Speaking on RT\u00c9 Radio on Sunday afternoon, Ms McEntee also claimed Ms Connolly had previously \u201clauded\u201d Brexit and accused those who were opposed to it of fearmongering while now telling voters she was pro-European.<\/p>\n

Ms McEnteee accused Ms Connelly of having \u201csaid one thing and her actions have said the complete opposite\u201d and pointed to \u201cher work as a barrister, working with banks repossessing homes and then coming into the D\u00e1il chamber and absolutely castigating those same people\u201d.<\/p>\n

When it was pointed out that the Bar Council rules mandate that barristers should not be identified with their clients or their clients\u2019 causes or suffer adverse consequences as a result of working with particular clients, the Minister for Education accepted that no rules were broken but repeated the accusation that Ms Connolly had \u201ccastigated those same banks that she worked for\u201d.<\/p>\n

Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s David Cullinane condemned the nature of Fine Gael\u2019s attacks in recent days and said Ms Connolly\u2019s campaign had been \u201cvery positive\u201d, in contrast to what he said was a \u201csmear campaign by Fine Gael especially over the last number of days and weeks\u201d.<\/p>\n

He was speaking on the Week In Politics, the same programme on which Fianna F\u00e1il\u2019s Mary Butler said \u201can awful lot of Fianna F\u00e1il supporters that I have spoken will still vote Jim Gavin number one because they\u2019re Fianna F\u00e1il voters and they only vote for Fianna F\u00e1il but I believe a lot of them will vote for Heather Humphreys\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Taoiseach at Bodenstown rejected any possibility of a split in the party over differing opinions over who members will vote for in the upcoming presidential election. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe party is not issuing directions because we believe that would be counterproductive … people are in a democracy, will vote in accordance with their preferences. But there won\u2019t be a split on this issue within the parliamentary party.\u201d \u2013 Additional reporting PA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin has criticised Independent presidential candidate Catherine Connolly\u2019s stance on the European Union (EU), while acknowledging…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":512354,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[2000,299,5187,679],"class_list":{"0":"post-512353","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-european","11":"tag-irish-politics"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115401944179411215","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=512353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512353\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/512354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}