72 hours later and still no Fianna Fáil costings – Burke

Three days after Fianna Fáil published their poorly prepared manifesto, the public is still waiting to see what costings accompany their plans, a Fine Gael TD has said.

Fine Gael candidate Longford Westmeath Peter Burke said it is quiet unbelievable that Micheál Martin’s party have still not published their future economic plans for the country.

“Last Friday, the Fianna Fáil leader at their manifesto launch said ‘We have spreadsheets which people can talk to you after this press conference and go through the figures in detail with you.’ Well they didn’t provide any spreadsheets to anyone. In fact, their finance spokesman didn’t even attend the same event so that hardly inspires us with confidence.

“Today, Deputy McGrath said tables will be published later on. Hopefully so, as the public need to see how their uncosted and reckless plans stack up. Fianna Fáil will hardly let their leader go onto tonight’s RTE debate without publishing them, will they?”

“Clearly if the sums added up, Micheál Martin would have launched this last Friday. As with their rent freeze flip flopping and their last minute legal advice – there was a lot of work done over the weekend to try and dig Micheál Martin out of a hole. Had Fianna Fáil the arithmetic right, they would have published them last Friday with their manifesto.

“If Fianna Fáil had any decency, they would delay publish their costings so that the man who refused to share the spotlight with any of his colleagues on Friday – when he launched the manifesto – is able to be there to take questions on how the figures add up.

“When it comes to the serious matters of state, it’s up to a leader to lead. It’s not leadership to publish a rushed and uncosted manifesto and then run for the hills when it comes to explaining the maths,” Deputy Burke said.