Damien English (Fine Gael)

candidate Dáil election

How would you, as well as your party, respond to TDs receiving the average industrial wage as an annual income (and severe limiting of expenses) in order to contribute to meaningful social equity?

Ireland has an amazing reputation worldwide as a supporter of humanitarian aid and international development.

Do you and your party intend to keep our aid promises in an era of economic austerity?

In particular will you keep to our promise to invest 0.7% of national income in overseas aid by 2015 and will you introduce legislation to enshrine these values in law and ensure Irish Aid can plan well into the future?

Much of the election campaign talk has been of an economic nature. There has been talk of ‘growing the economy’; of ‘promoting growth’; or ‘providing/creating jobs’; and other talk that is all of an economic concern. However, science today tells us that climate change is a serious issue (however, contested); that peak oil is an increasing concern; that species extinctions are happening at an alarming rate; and in today’s news, the EPA has announced that over 50% of Irish landfill sites are nearly full.

Why does your party not assign equal attention to ecological issues as it does to economic issues?