Aontú challenges FF leader over Mayo senator's 'Euro' candidacy

Aontú leader Deputy Peadar Tóibín has today challenged Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin to come out and confirm if he will continue to back European Parliament candidate Lisa Chambers, who is urging Fianna Fail to cut ties with Eamon Ryan and his Green Party, decrying their policies as “too narrow, too limited and too slow."

In an interview with the Irish Independent, the Mayo senator said the Green Party's 'climate change agenda' is placing rural Ireland in ‘a green straitjacket'.

Deputy Tóibín, who is also standing in the midlands-north west constituency, said: “We don’t know if Lisa Chambers actually is genuinely concerned about the people of rural Ireland and the huge damage the Greens are doing, or if she’s cynically exploiting their fears, knowing that the writing is on the wall and the people of rural Ireland, who are custodians of the land and the seas in the main, are sick to the hind legs of being lectured by an increasingly arrogant and out of touch Green Party.

“We know that Ms. Chambers did a cynical ‘Volte Face’ following the Family and Care Referendum and claimed that she voted No-No.

"But as this was after the event, after the body politic of government and an acquiescent opposition were resoundingly trounced by the voting public, most people take her pronouncements with more than a grain of salt.

“However, in her position as Leader of the Seanad, her words must carry some weight and what I want to know now is whether Micheal Martin is going to cut ties with the Greens, as Senator Chambers is urging him to do, or if he is going to carry on his coalition with them regardless of his senators's self-professed ‘concerns’.

“Either way it’s a tricky day for Fianna Fáil, who are increasingly out of touch and out of time with the people and putting forward a candidate who is calling ‘time’ on its alignment with the Greens.

“Maybe the weekend’s poll that put the ‘Soldiers of Destiny’ on a lowly 14% has more to do with Lisa Chambers' utterances than any genuine concerns about the damage the Greens are doing.

“It’s farcical no matter what way you look at it, but the voters of Midlands-North West are not laughing. They deserve better.

“I’m happy to debate Senator Chambers in a bid to determine her real feelings on this issue, and I look forward to her response."