TD for Kildare North James Lawless has said that some parties are lacking clarity on their aims and even hiding their objectives, unlike Fianna Fáil.

Deputy Lawless, who also chairs the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice was tasked by his party to review the aims and objectives of Fianna Fáil for the third time in the party's history.

Speaking to Gavan Reilly On The Record, he said that their focus has changed since the party's foundation, moving away from self-sufficiency and towards promoting enterprise.

He also said that health care, housing and education are now three of the party's core focuses, making his party "centre-left" in his eyes.

"We believe that every ordinary working person that are on a working salary should be able to afford a home, that homeownership should not be in the exclusive reserve of the very wealthy."

According to Deputy Lawless, not all parties share this view.

"If we look at the public services, and there's strength in reforming those, when we went into confidence of supply with Fine Gael in 2016, we had to twist the table to say 'no, we want a three to one ratio of public services to tax cuts'."

"Fine Gael at the time were doing one to one because they have an ideology - it's their prerogative, but we don't share it - which I would say is slightly more centre-right."

Hiding objectives

Deputy Lawless accused opposition parties of hiding their manifestos.

"I don't know what other party's aims and objectives are, because I haven't seen them identify them", he said.

"I'd looked at other party websites in the courses of this exercise. Some of them are kept quite hidden ... because maybe they're not so clear themselves."

"The haters are gonna hate."

When On The Record researchers Google searched the Labour, Social Democrats and Sinn Féin party manifestos, they were all available online.

One listener texted in saying: "First thing [Lawless] should do is read the other parties' manifestos. They're clearly there, you just didn't bother to read them."

"Rookie PR mistake."

Deputy Lawless replied: "The haters are gonna hate."

Sinn Féin

Fianna Fáil announced their values and objectives at the party's Ard Fheis, which took place over the weekend.

"Looking at the opposition, I don't see any other parties talking about defending our democracy, you know, the growth of populism, disinformation, free and fair elections for civic and political rights", Deputy Lawless said.

"I think Sinn Féin are a populist party."

Listen back to the full conversation here.