Munster Express Online

Fine Gael European Election candidate for Ireland East, Senator John Paul Phelan, compared Taoiseach Brian Cowen to a child playing Monopoly and accused the government of ignoring all the warning signs.

Addressing followers as his campaign was officially launched by party leader Enda Kenny, Senator Phelan said: “How could they be so short sighted, so deaf to the warnings? Then it struck me – Monopoly. Brian Cowen must have learned all he knows about economics from playing Monopoly as a child. Ignore the utilities, forget about transport, raid the community chest, take a chance and get out of jail free; build as many houses as you can and then some hotels and you win the game. Well, the game is over and the Irish people have lost. But we remain saddled with the same team that brought us to this abyss and they are clueless as to how we might get out of it,” Senator Phelan told supporters gathered in Kilkenny.

Senator Phelan went on to say that the government seems hypnotised by the scale of the problem. “They are paralysed by the knowledge of their culpability; they are incapable of constructive action. Slash and burn, cut and gouge; that is all they have to offer the Irish people. Angry we may be, but we must not indulge ourselves in that anger. Now is a time for solutions. Now is a time to offer real hope. Now is a time for change.”

So much of the suffering the Irish public is now forced to endure could have been avoided, he added. “In my first term in the Seanad, as Finance Spokesman, I had the great privilege to work with Richard Bruton.

Again and again we warned them. We told them that benchmarking would not work, and we lost votes because of it, but we were right. We told them that we were losing competitiveness, and we were right. We told them they were inflating a property bubble that would hurt thousands when it burst, and sadly, we were right.”

Speaking of outgoing MEP Avril Doyle, Senator Phelan concluded: “Avril Doyle is renowned internationally as a judge of bloodlines and horseflesh. So when she told me that she wanted me to enter this race, I drew great confidence from her faith in me. Avril doesn’t back losers. While I may not have Avril’s fine pedigree and classy presentation and I may lack the flash of other entries, I can promise her, and you all, that no matter how heavy the going or hard the ground, I will run and run and run. There is no way in the world that I am going to tell Avril Doyle that we lost her seat!”