New poll shows further fall for FF

Less than a week ahead of next Friday's elections a poll for tomorrow's Sunday Business Post shows a further fall in support for Fianna Fáil.

The poll carried out by RED C shows the party down three points to 21%.

Fine Gael and Labour are unchanged at 34% and 18% respectively.

The Green Party is down one point to 4%, Sinn Féin at 10%, up three, and Independents and others 13%, up one.

Taoiseach Brian Cowen said an earlier poll in today's Irish Times MRBI poll showed that Fianna Fáil was in a very tight race for the European Parliament seat in Dublin, but that the party was going to work for the next seven days to try to keep it.

The poll indicates that support for Fianna Fáil's Eoin Ryan has slipped 2 percentage points to 9 per cent.

Speaking in Youghal, Co Cork, Mr Cowen dismissed the drop as being 'within the margin of error'.

Asked if he is encountering anger among voters regarding the size of the Anglo Irish Banks bailout, he said people have moved on and 'know that the Government has a responsibilty to keep a financially secure system in the country in the interest of maintaining jobs'.

But Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said European elections were different from general and local elections.

He said he was confident in the calibre of his Fine Gael candidate in the East, John Paul Phelan, and said he hoped he would join Mairead McGuinness in Europe.

He called on the Fine Gael party to remain vigilant in the run up to the election, and said this was no time for complacency.

He said Fine Gael had called for Anglo-Irish to be taken over and wound down.

He said yesterday the Minister for Finance had 'robbed the taxpaper of €4bn' and aims to take another €3bn in the future.

He said if the Government proceeded with NAMA it would expose the taxpayer to another liability of €90bn.