Fine Gael launches Sinn Féin attack ad as criticism of Mary Lou McDonald's RTE review continues
by Louise Burne · Irish MirrorFine Gael has launched an attack advertisement on Sinn Féin stating they would "raid our public finances".
Shortly after the blistering video was published, Sinn Féin hit back at Fine Gael, saying it was time for Simon Harris’ party to "stop wasting public money".
The Fine Gael video started with a hammer hitting a piggy bank and a multitude of hands grabbing the money flowing out of it.
READ MORE: Sinn Féin vows workers will be €2,000 better off after tax cuts in manifesto
At the launch of the video, Public Expenditure Minister Paschal Donohoe said that the plans in Sinn Féin’s manifesto are "capable of causing such harm to jobs and to the future of our economy".
"If we had done what they wanted to do over the last number of years, we would not now be in a position of our public finances being healthy with such change brewing across the world," he said.
"At the very time we need to strengthen the safety nets that are available within our economy, at the very time when we need to ensure that our public finances are strong, they [Sinn Féin] are confirming that they would spend money that we can't be certain we're going to have in the future."
Sinn Féin later hit back at Fine Gael, using the same broken piggy bank image, stating that it was "time to stop 14 years of Fine Gael endlessly public money".
They said this included spending on the €336,000 Leinster House bike shed and a €1.5bn overspend on the Children’s Hospital.
Elsewhere, Tánaiste Micheál Martin slated Sinn Féin’s plan to commission a "human rights and journalists' expert review into the objectivity of coverage by RTÉ of the Israeli genocide in Gaza and other international conflicts".
The Fianna Fáil leader described the proposal in the Sinn Féin manifesto as "shocking" and "sinister."
He said: "That is almost threatening behaviour right now to RTÉ that, 'We're watching you and if your views don't accord with our views, well actually, we’ll set up a peer review'."
Taoiseach Simon Harris said the Sinn Féin suggestion was a "dog whistle to conspiracy theorists" and "an effort to undermine media freedom".
Speaking in west Dublin, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said she "accepts and respects the necessity for editorial independence".
She said that Sinn Féin in Government would "not be commissioning" the review, leading to questions about why it was in the party’s general election manifesto.
She said: "The objective here is not for political interference, but actually to grow and develop confidence and trust.
"So what we are proposing is a peer review. Nothing got to do with politicians," she said.
"The commissioning of the review would have to be independent of government."
She added: "If I were in RTÉ, if I were a journalist, I would welcome something like that. I think it can actually be really helpful."
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