Republican News · Thursday 14 February 2002

Adams joins Crowe to launch Dáil challenge

Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams was in Dublin South West on Tuesday for the official launch of Councillor Seán Crowe's Leinster House campaign. Crowe is widely expected to win a seat in the upcoming general election.

Over 250 people packed into Killinarden Community Centre in Tallaght for the launchThe Sinn Féin leader will address a public meeting this evening in the Killinarden Community Center, Tallaght, where Sinn Féin held its Ard Fheis in 1994. Introducing the speakers was Crowe's South Dublin County Council colleague Mark Daly, and the meeting was chaired by Dublin West party representative Mary Lou MacDonald.

Thanking the people of Tallaght for their support in the past, Gerry Adams said: "Ten years ago The people of Tallaght opened their homes and this community centre to us in 1994 when there was a sustained effort by the Dublin political establishment to eradicate Sinn Féin and our Ard Fheis was banned from corporation buildings.

"Looking back now it seems like a different world. And in many respects it was. Section 31 meant that Sinn Féin was banned from the broadcast media. Unofficial censorship pervaded the rest of the media. Governments refused, at least publicly, to speak to Sinn Féin. We were blocked from using the Mansion House for our Ard Fheis. And our members their families and elected representatives were the target of loyalist death squads. Thursday sees the 13th anniversary of the killing of John Davey, the first of our councillors to be killed.

But in the midst of all of this, ordinary people remained sound. And this was no more evident than here in Tallaght where we were given access to this community centre for our Ard Fheis, but perhaps of greater significance, the hundreds who traveled here from all across Ireland were welcomed with open arms and open doors."

Sean Crowe, thanking the large crowd of supporters and party activists for their attendanvce, promised that he would do all he could to make sure he becomes the first TD for Sinn Féin in Dublin since the 1920s.

"We want changes people can see on the ground," he said, and he drew particualr attention to his campaigning work around Tallaght Hospital and the drugs crisis and his involvement in attempts to tackle it, through his personal involvement in areas and by his participation in the local Drugs Task Force.

"We are about empowering people not as some have accused us in the media, taking over areas. Sinn Féin people are as affected by bad government as anyone else and that is why we are visible doing something about it. No one can say they haven't seen us since the last election.

"I am confident that we will deliver a seat for Sinn Féin in Dublin South West. I can do it. You can do it. Join me and do it."

On Wednesday, Gerry Adams visits Wexford and will in Wexford town, Enniscorthy and New Ross.