Republican News · Thursday 7 February 2002

"We will do better than this," says McCole.

"Republicanism is not just fine ideals on a page, but is the driving inspiration for Sinn Féin activists in every county in Ireland," said Frances McCole, Sinn Féin's newly selected candidate for Dublin North-Central.

McCole, who also heads up the party's National Training Unit, was speaking at a debate on Republicanism - Past, Present and Future held in Maynooth University last week at which Fianna Fáil Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs Dermot Ahern unconvincingly staked his claim to be a republican.

Ending her speech, McCole spoke directly to the numerous young people in the audience, challenging them to think about the kind of world they want to live in.

"Take a walk around Dublin and see young people old before their time. Listen to the stories of the families who have buried the children they couldn't save from heroin. Watch the mothers struggle with toddlers on their way to their methadone clinic. Witness the young men as they spend their lives in and out of Mountjoy. The housing crisis, the health crisis, the prisons crisis, the drugs crisis. Tearing peoples lives apart.

"We can do better than this. We could do so much better than this. And we will do better than this.

"It's worth thinking about the future now; you're going to spend the rest of your life there. What do you want? More of the same FF/Lab, FF/PD, FG/Lab with a few independents thrown in to make it interesting? Isn't this just rearranging the political deckchairs?

"Or is it time to change make real changes? The choice is yours before the summer. Do you really want five more years of the same old bankrupt politics? Or is it time to read again the Proclamation of 1916 and make it something more than a bit of the furniture in Leinster House?"