"Fine Gael is bad for your health", read the slogan on the billboard campagin that Sinn Féin launched outside the Mater Hospital in Dublin this afternoon, writes Conor McMorrow of our political staff.
Under a picture of people waiting on hospital trolleys, people were asked to vote for Sinn Féin "for a fairer recovery".
However, party leader Gerry Adams found himself peppered with questions about how Sinn Féin’s alternative to the Special Criminal Court might work.
Accompanied by party health spokesperson Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin and election candidates Darren O’Rourke (Meath East) and Máire Devine (Dublin South Central), Mr Adams started by attacking the Minister for Health Leo Varadkar.
He said: "I want to take issue with the extraordinary comments from Leo Varadkar this morning."
Reading out a quote from Mr Varadkar, he said, 'What can happen in some hospitals is sometimes, when they have more beds and more resources, that kind of slows things up'.
"He said it means hospital staff 'don't feel as much under pressure'," said Mr Adams.
Mr Adams said that is absolutely “Stupid. It’s a nonsense. It’s putting the blame on the staff and it is actually arguing in a daft way for hospital overcrowding.
"I think that the legacy of Fine Gael and Labour on the issue is clear from all its broken pledges," said Mr Adams.
Outlining his party’s healthcare plan, Mr Ó Caoláin pledged that: “Going into a second term we will deliver universal healthcare for all bringing to an end the two-tier health system that has discriminated against so many citizens and ill-served the healthcare needs of people over many decades."
Mr Adams was asked for his reaction to Michael Noonan’s commitment to abolish the USC by 2020. He replied that, "People have heard all these promises before in the last election and they will have seen how Michael Noonan has cooked the books.
"It’s obvious from his remarks this morning that he is going to try and bluff his way through this campaign. There is no commitment from this government to public services."
Then Mr Adams was asked about the gangland killing on Friday.
"Those murders wouldn’t have happened if the Special Criminal Court worked. It doesn’t work. So what we need and we were not on our own [on] this, a range of people through the various international human rights and civil rights and civil liberties bodies have said that we need to have normal laws which deal with people on the basis of justice.
"People should be tried by their peers and suffer whatever sanction comes out of that," said Mr Adams.
Asked if the Special Criminal Court were to be abolished, how witnesses would be protected from intimidation, Mr Adams replied, "All of that can be done. This happens in other administrations where witnesses are protected and the law is upheld and we could do exactly the same thing here if there was a will to do it."
He said that the gardaí need all the help they can get. He said that Friday’s attack was horrific and the way to tackle it is to get right behind the Garda Síochána and support them.
Mr Adams was asked again how exactly he would protect witnesses and juries. He said that in other jurisdictions in the EU, Britain and the USA, they have witness protection programmes. They deal with criminality, they bring people to court and they are subject to due process.
Asked if juries would be put into a witness protection programme, Mr Adams responded that: "There are measures which can be used to deal with all of that but what we are saying is that there is no need for what was brought in as so-called emergency legislation 40 years ago, and which has no basis in natural law or the accepted norms of law that a person has the right to be tried by a jury of their peers."
Mr Adams was then asked, "Are you saying that somebody who undertakes their civic duty to serve on a jury, can kiss goodbye to their family and go into hiding to serve on a jury?"
Mr Adams said that was not what he said: "Listen to your tape and if you hear me saying that I will give you a ticket to the Bruce Springsteen concert.
"I said that other administrations deal with these issues and with criminality of this kind without having to resort to special criminal courts."
Mr Adams said that he is not an expert in witness protection but he knows that "it functions well for all involved".
"You would put in normal laws based on justice and when there are special threats to witnesses or jurors, you bring in the type of measures which have worked quite well in other administrations but still allow a person to be tried by a jury of their peers."
He said that Sinn Féin’s broad principle is that everybody has the right to a jury of their peers and added that he "spent four and a half years in prison without any trial. Do you think that is fair?"
He pledged that Sinn Féin will use the best practice from other administrations and adapt them to the particular circumstances in this State.
