Fine Gael TD fires jab at Sinn Fein and Jonathan Dowdall as election results roll in

A Fine Gael TD has fired a brutal jab at Sinn Fein and Jonathan Dowdall as the election votes continue to be counted.

Early indications from the results of Friday’s local and European elections, show there will be no Sinn Fein surge and that Government parties do not appear to have suffered a major electoral blow.

While Sinn Fein is predicted to improve on its 2019 haul of 81 seats, the result is a long way off the party’s general election result in 2020, where they won 24.5% of the vote.

Fine Gael TD and Minister of State with responsibility for EU Affairs & Defence Jennifer Carroll MacNeill spoke to Anton Savage on Newstalk on Sunday morning about her party appearing to be the strongest in Ireland.

Asked what her party will do next, Ms MacNeill said: ‘I think what would be wise would be to see all of the results coming in over the next week, talk to candidates about what they think went well, get their feedback about how we need to take the direction from a policy direction for the general election.

‘What are we going to say to people about the vision for Ireland? How are we going to describe the reality of Ireland today in terms of our economy, our social services and how we can improve that?

‘What we are learning is that it’s not radical visions of magic things like houses for €300,000, which absolutely no one believes.’

Making reference to Sinn Fein’s plans to reduce the cost of houses in Dublin to €300,000 if elected, Ms MacNeill then brought up former Sinn Fein councillor Jonathan Dowdall.

‘Look, the only Sinn Féin person having a good day is Jonathan Dowdall in Portlaoise Prison who stuck his house up on the market for €800,000.

‘Which is well over twice the price of what Mary Lou thinks is the price of a house in Dublin. Very unrealistic but it goes to show you that people didn’t buy that,’ she said.

Mr Dowdall lost his bid last year to have his four-year sentence reduced for his involvement in the killing of David Byrne at the Regency Hotel in 2016.

Meanwhile, on Saturday, the Public Expenditure Minister Paschal Donohoe said the expectation that Sinn Fein would be in the next government has been ‘shattered’ by the initial indications in the local elections.