Crowe launches challenge for Dublin South-West seat

Date: 15th Feb '02

Name: article from RM Irish News Round-Up

Crowe launches challenge for Dublin South-West seat

Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams was in Dublin South West on
Tuesday for the official launch of Councillor Sean 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 Fein leader will address a public
meeting this evening in the Killinarden Community Center,
Tallaght, where Sinn Fein 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 Fein 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 Fein was banned from
the broadcast media. Unofficial censorship pervaded the rest of
the media. Governments refused, at least publicly, to speak to
Sinn Fein. 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 Fein 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 Fein 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 Fein in
Dublin South West. I can do it. You can do it. Join me and do
it."

c. RM Distribution and others. Articles may be reprinted with credit.

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