Toiréasa Ferris Blog

Consistency: is it too much to ask for?

As more and more issues arise over the length of the campaign I am beginning to wonder if some of our sittings MEPs have dual personalities!

I mean on the one hand I listen to them passionately defending our local and regional hospitals and even taking part in campaigns to protect them and then on the other hand I look at their record and that of their party colleagues in Brussels and Strasbourg where they have supported moves to treat healthcare as part of the "internal market" instead of as a public service.

You see them railing against nuclear power at home and pushing the nuclear agenda in Europe, even running on a manifesto which talks about the need for more and cheaper nuclear power plants- Sellafields with Homer Simpson at the helm as my colleague Tomás Sharkey puts it!

Not forgetting the biggest hypocrisy of them all- the Lisbon Treaty. How can they on the one hand say they want Ireland to be at the "Heart of Europe" and on the other hand argue for a Treaty which will halve Ireland's voting power at the EU table and remove some of our strategic vetoes? How can they say they want a more democratic Europe when they have actively contrived with other MEPs and governments to ignore not only our vote against Lisbon but that of the people of France and Holland previously on the EU Constitution?

I have no intention of developing any dual personality if elected. Imagine having to try to remember if you are in favour of rural post offices one day or whether you're against them another day because you're in Strasbourg!

Sinn Féin's two MEPs over the past five years have worked tirelessly and consistently in defending our constituents' interests. Their work has shown up the antics of other Irish MEPs too long used to getting away with voting one way in Europe and coming home then to say the exact opposite!

With me you won't get two Toiréasas- I only know how to be the one- and wouldn't even be able to change that if I wanted to!