The Dublin Euro MEP Election Candidates

dublin | politics / elections | feature

Saturday May 10, 2014 13:20

by 1 of Indymedia

Use your vote to keep the Austerity MEPs out on Friday 23rd May 2014

The Euro and local council elections take place on Fri May 23rd and nationwide there are 11 MEPs to be elected to represent Ireland Euro elections will also be taking place across Europe for a grand total of 751 seats in the European Parliament. Regrettably the European Commission which is composed of 28 non-elected and appointed commissioners and is besieged by thousands of lobbying firms working for the private sector, is probably reckoned to have more power. Yet despite this Europe matters because at least 70% of our legislation comes from there and practically most of the regulation in a diverse range of areas originates from Europe and some of the more background regulation has its origins with corporate lobbyists with the aim of using heavy regulation to put smaller competitors out of businesses by greatly increasing the relative costs for smaller businesses. The main political parties of Fianna Fail and Fine Gael constantly tell us they are pro business and for jobs and the economy. In fact they are for big business, privatisation, outsourcing of jobs, lower wages, less social safety net and their support of big business and corporations constantly results in the suffocating of small business which are the very areas that lead to most employment.

Since Croatia joined the EU and became a full member in 2013 they have had to redistribute the number of MEPs so that they could allocate some to Croatia. In the process Ireland looses one seat and the boundaries had to be redrawn [1]. As a result Dublin has 3 seats, the Midlands-North-West has 4 and the 'South' has 4. In the Dublin consituency, there are 8 candidates and 3 of these are already current MEPs.

Here we have a brief look at them to see what they are about. Naturally we are really only interested here in candidates on the Left because those on the neo-liberal right wing have the entire mainstream media and corporate funds to promote them so there is no need to do that here. There is one point worth noting about the right wing and in some regards this even includes Labour and that is they will consistently say anything to get elected and make promises and none of which they keep. In the case of FF people should not forget that they brought this country to its knees and fresh young faces are not going to change the diktats of their capitalist backers. They will come to your door and say they are for small business, but ultimately they are not. They are the very same people who doing the bidding of big business and too big to fail banks, both of which destroy small businesses and create regulations designed to put small firms out of business across a huge range of areas. The FG Party is little different in terms of carrying out the capitalist agenda and as we know this means cutting back the social safety net and protections, bailing out the rich and pushing the neo liberal agenda of selling off what they can and privatising what they can.

Labour are unique because going back to at least the 1970s or more, they talk Left wing policies but they have betrayed their constituents everytime they have ever got into power and worked eagerly with the right to pursue and implement policies that the right wing would find hard to do on their own. But this is not unique to Ireland as the exact same thing happened next door in the UK and other countries too. Nevertheless there are certainly members in the party who do sign up because of the apparent left politics.

While some of these points may seem to relate to national policies, people should bear them in mind for the Euro elections because these politicians will act in the same way no matter what Parliament they sit in and where we have a chance to have any influence and I would agree it is minimal, we should nevertheless take it when we can.

Finally people will be aware of the immense coverage that the Water Tax has got in the mainstream media in the last few weeks and all this talk of flat fees and waivers. Do not be fooled. The so-called deal to get rid of the flat fee and introduce waivers to the less well off will not last. The same thing was promised with the Bin Tax campaign where 'You would pay for what you throwaway'. Well flat fees are widespread and quite high for waste collection and the waiver system has been completely abolished. The exact same will happen with the Water Tax. Don't be bought out by this false promises.

On the voting, if people carefully choose their preferences, it might even be possible to get two Left MEPs elected in Dublin and they can do this by putting other left candidates (details on them below) in the order of their preference.

The candidates then are as follows:
SP: Paul Murphy, MEP
PBP: Cllr Brid Smith
SF: Lynn Boylan
Ind: Nessa Childers, MEP
GP: Eamon Ryan

FG: Brian Hayes, TD
FF: Cllr Mary Fitzpatrick
Lab: Emer Costello, MEP
Fis Nua: Damon Matthew Wise
Direct Democracy Ireland: Raymond Patrick Whitehead
Direct Democracy Ireland: Tom Darcy

Paul Murphy of the Socialist Party is a sitting MEP. He tookover the seat in March 2011 when Joe Higgins was re-elected again as a TD to the Dail. He is a young, intelligent and a solictor by profession. He only takes the average industrial wage from his salary and gives the rest to the Socialist Party to fund his work to popularise a socialist alternative to austerity and capitalism. Like many of the Left candidates compared to the staid people on the right who serve big business and the financial oligarchy, he has principles and believes in his cause which is to stand up for the interests of ordinary people and he does that. He points out that Labour prior to the general election had said one of the key aims if they got into government was to stop a Fine Gael Water Tax.

Murphy has been at the forefront of the campaign against the Household Tax and Property Tax and more recently the Water Tax. He also setup the ScamBrigde.ie website to hightlight the scam that the JobBridge scheme is which is welfare for companies. He has campaigned against the Youth Guarantee which he says is not properly funded and won't provide the training and jobs for youth that it claims and instead will drive them into the free labour scheme and the likes of JobBridge or even the new Gateway scheme which works out at %euro;1.25 per hour. He points out that these schemes really show the hollow nature of the 'recovery' in Ireland and they constitute a turning point in the strident attempts of the capitalist establishment and the state to cut wages and develop Ireland as a low wage location and economy. In contrast, Paul Murphy MEP is demanding an end to the reliance on the private sector and for major public investment, funded by not paying the debt and increased taxation on the super rich and big business, to provide the jobs we require with decent pay and conditions.

His other areas of interest are his support of the Palestinian people and in 2011 he was on the Gaza ship as part of the "Freedom Flotilla II’" in attempting to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza strip and more latterly in calling out the human abuse rights in Saudi Arabia and in Qatar where over hundreds of workers have died in building the stadiums for the 2022 FIFA World Cup and where workers are treated virtually as slaves.

Murphy was a leading campaigner in Europe against the so-called ACTA agreement that would have undermined people’s right to privacy and freedom on the internet. At the moment, he is struggling against the proposed EU-US free trade agreement, which threatens to bring more Genetically Modificed Organisms into the EU, to lower health standards in food production and to be part of a race to the bottom in workers’ conditions and rights on both sides of the Atlantic

Brid Smith is going up as a People Before Profit candidate and also a member of the Socialist Workers Party. She is already a councillor in Dublin City and her profile has been rising in the past few years even though she has been active in many campaigns over the past few decades. She strongly opposes the Property Tax and Water Tax and says the government should be spending money on fixing leaks and not on installing meters. She is opposed to the privatisation agenda pushed by both our government and the EU bureaucracy and says we should tax the rich who during this recession have seen their overall wealth increase while for everyone else it has gone down.

Some of her other aims are to cancel the natioanl debt becasue the European Central Bank and their Irish allies made us responsible for the private gambling debts of bankers and by voting for her, it would send a signal that the Irish people want to unilaterally cancel EU imposed debt.

Another very important area is her call for real democracy and to end the rule of the corporate lobbyists. There are 15,000 lobbyists in Brussels who spend €1 billion a year promoting their corporate interests. She says, if elected Bríd Smith 'will shine a light on their activities and seek to drive them out'. While this would be a huge step forward, it is unlikely she could drive them out without a huge Europe wide base of support behind her, but even shining the light on how the EU is captive to corporate interests and control would be a very good step forward.

Nessa Childers is a MEP and resigned from the Labour party last year. Now that she is independent it remains to be seen which way she will go, although her resignation statement indicates she is left of the Labour party. She appears to have her heart in the right place because back in 2011 when Labour pushed the Austerity Treaty, Childers who was still in Labour at that point did not support the Austerity Treaty when the European Parliament voted on it in September 2011.

When she finally broke with the Labour party in July 2013, she put out this statement explaining her reasons:

Labour in government supports a policy of never-ending, pointless austerity that has failed on the issues of unemployment and emigration and is inflicting misery on hundreds of thousands of our people. It is a policy of cutting services like health, education and social protection, while bankers, big corporates and the wealthy are allowed dodge their share of the burden. This is a profoundly immoral and unfair way to run our country.

I have increasingly found myself discouraged and prevented from advocating a progressive position within the party. For example, a particularly low point for me was when I the party leadership abandoned me for taking a principled stance of opposition to the appointment to the EU Court of Auditors of Mr Kevin Cardiff, who was Secretary General of the Department of Finance when the bank bailout was decided on.

Last April, I made an initial stand against the government’s direction by resigning from the Parliamentary Labour Party. Since then, Labour’s failure in government has gone from bad to worse and the party has committed to even more austerity in the next Budget and beyond. I am following through on my earlier decision and from now on I intend to work independently for the principles and policies I believe in.

src: http://www.irishelection.com/2013/07/nessa-childers-res...dent/

Some of the policies Nessa Childers calls for are:

A fair and balanced wealth tax and a new top rate of tax
An increase in Universal Social Charge for high income earners
A Financial Transaction Tax on banks not paying their fair share. (often referred to as a Tobin Tax)
An absolute floor of 10% of effective corporation tax. This is lower than the 12% but she is referring to the special deals which were uncovered where it was discovered for example that Apple only paid 2% tax.

Eamon Ryan of the Green Party would be considered to be right of the party is going to give it a go at the Euro MEP elections. In his favour is his experience in government as a minister and many years in politics. in terms of achievements whilst in government he strongly encouraged renewable energy, introduced the bike-to-work scheme which seems to have started a revival of biking in Ireland in general and possibly the new 42km 'Greenway' bicycle path in Mayo has come out of that. He also brought in grants to promote insulation in homes and his website puts the figure at 100,000 so far. It is less clear how he faired on issues like organic farming, and on GM crops unfortunately failed to get Ireland declared GM free, although given the Greens were in power with Fianna Fail the banking and corporate party, it is not surprising.

The Greens in Ireland followed the same trajectory as in Germany where they started off as decentralised and very much Left wing organisations. Over the years they then moved to the centre and once in power moved further to the right and sold out on their principles and suffered a collapse in support.

In Germany there has been a weak reviable and we can expect the same here too. They do get support because they do try to address some serious environmental issues. Where they fall down is that they are too afraid to openly critise and challenge capitalism in any way in order to remain respectable with the mainstream media. Their problem then is that they have moved away for any sort of activism and are now firmly rooted in middle class sensibilities and this consitutency has too much to loose if it involves upsetting the status quo even though it should be quite clear that the extent and depth of the many environmental issues facing humanity today require a fundamental reorganisation of politics and society itself. In short, if environmental issues are important to you, you would be better of voting for one of the Left candidates and possibly Lynn Boylan of Sinn Fein, since she is an ecologist by training.

Lynn Boylan an ecologist, is a member of the Sinn Féin Ard Comhairle and has been an active Sinn Féin member of the party for eight years. She contested the 2007 general election and the 2009 local election in South Kerry. In 2009 she returned to Dublin where she now works in Ballymun as a community programme coordinator with an environmental NGO. This work allows her to combine her skills as an ecologist with her commitment to community activism. Whilst in Kerry she spent 10 years working in Killarney National Park (KNP) and KNP Education Centre. She is well aquainted with environmental law.

In 2010 Lynn was appointed chairperson of the Safefood Advisory Board after serving four years on the board. Safefood, one of the Good Friday Agreement All Ireland bodies, promotes greater cooperation in the areas of nutrition and food safety and she now has six years of experience in the area of food regulation.

Unlike FF and FG politicians who say they have Ireland agriculture and image at heart and then sell out to the interests of corporate GM food companies and the interests of industrial agriculture, Lynn Boylan understands the environment and cares for it and so she is likely to promote and protect what are the true assets of Ireland which are its green image in terms of the environment and the quality of our food. Ireland should be going all out to turn the agriculture system around to be fully organic and keeping the country GM free because this would build on our existing image and we could really build on the high quality, high value of this area. Instead successive governments have done the opposite and there is almost zero government support in Ireland for organic agriculture.

Lynn has also real interest in EU Policy and politics, particularly in the areas of employment, public transport, environment and food regulation. On the subject matter of food regulation this is becoming increasing important as an epidemic of obesity sweeps the country, largely fueled by large food companies promoting sugar laden and saturated fat laden food that is unhealthy costing the country billions and leading to depression and lowered quality of life but at the same time leading to higher revenues for these firms. Wholesome food and food education starting early in life is needed but needs to be backed up with regulation to control these large coporate entities.

Report on European Parliament Constituencies 2013 1.03 Mb

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Comments (14 of 14)

Some analysis of recent euro election results from a left perspective

by Fred

Tue Jun 10, 2014 00:30

This is worth a look

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/06/09/the-so-called-eu...uake/

Highlights

by Caobhin

Fri Jun 06, 2014 23:26

Best thing about the Dublin EU vote was seeing Eamon Ryan celebrate his impending victory after the first tallies. The Greens smug assumption that they were "transfer friendly" did not take account of peoples memories of their Labour-like betrayal when they propped up FF, betraying issues like Rossport and Tara in return for a few Ministries. Hence the left vote transferred to Childers at 2:1.

On another note, cannot understand why less than one third of Brid Smiths no.2s went to Paul Murphy, so much for the pact.

Results of the european elections.

by Crazy Cat

Wed May 28, 2014 13:27

The civic non-event of the year;

Here is a map of europe with the rates of abstention

http://www.touteleurope.eu/actualite/labstention-dans-l....html

And here in France:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/...n.jpg

And another graph giving the results and the difference between the last ones and this one.

So nothing has changed. We shall see buisness as usual

http://www.touteleurope.eu/actualite/elections-europeen....html

Democracy is beautiful in theory ; in practice it is a fallacy.

by Benny

Tue May 27, 2014 13:46

Fred may sound cynical but I've been saying the same thing for ages .What's the point in elections when so many voters are plain duh stupid ? Elections are just cosmetic exercises put on every four years to distract the gullible and make them believe they have some input into a "democratic" process .Strong leadership is what we really need at the moment for this country and you ain't gonna get that by consulting sheeple whose main interest is the price of a can of beer at the local Centra.

Are most of the electorate just irrational idiots, acting against their own longer term interests?

by fred

Mon May 26, 2014 16:48

perhaps the whole problem with politics is, as with economics, the assumption that the
"investor" / "voter" is actually rational.

Maybe we need a new left wing / eco politics based on the assumption that at least 40% of the electorate
(the FF/FG voters this time around) are pathologically stupid and easily manipulated time and time again.

Certainly seems that way to me at this stage.

And yes it does make you just want to give up in exasperation

Real analysis needed.

by Rational Ecologist

Mon May 26, 2014 16:37

The centre in Irish politics has moved to the right, and the left has moved with it.
The Irish electorate moans about right wing policies but vote for right wing parties.
Those on the left have little real vision, besides, correctly, opposing the various charges.
There is no ecological/environmental element to the debate.
Global Warming, Peak Oil and so on do not exist as far as RTE et al are concerned.
Overpopulation x consumption =impact, dare not even be mentioned.
It's a game and a distraction.
The normal left/right analysis no longer applies, especially in Eire.
I GIVE UP!!!!!!!!!

No I don't!

conservatism hasn't gone away you know

by No Bertie

Mon May 26, 2014 10:19

@ Hack

"Regrettably some people have very short memories and FF's vote has gone up about 5%." All I can say is that conservative economic thinking hasn't gone away. People who vote FF and FG constitute the majority in Irish society. They hope "things will pick up" and that good old capitalist-mixed economy Ireland can revert to normal. Some gloomily think it may take several more years. Many middle class mortgage holders are cash strapped and fed up with claptrap announcements from mainstream politicians. So my guess is that they have used the Euros and the locals to "send them a message". They don't think the parliament in Strasbourg is so important, and they will revert (many of them) to the FF/FG consensus in the general election. A sea change has taken place in Dublin and elsewhere - the Labour Party has been transhed into fourth place in parliamentary politics; it has been shoved aside decisively in Dublin areas by the radical Left and by Sinn Fein. How long will Sinn Fein continue its upward swing on the pendulum? I don't venture a guess.

Dublin Euro first preference counts

by hack

Mon May 26, 2014 10:04

Lynn Boylan (SF) 83,264 -elected
Brian Hayes FG) 63,591 -elected
Eamon Ryan (GP) 53,179
Mary Fitzpatrick (FF) 44,283
Nessa Childers (Ind) 35,939
Paul Murphy (SP) 29,953
Emer Costello (Lab) 25,961
Brid Smith (PBP) 23,875
Raymond White Whitehead (DDI) 3,133
Tom Darcy (DDI) 4,022
Jim Tallon (Ind) 2,244
Damon Wise (FN) 1,147

Battle for the 3rd seat is between Ryan and Childers with recount called for.

Looks like Left vote was split badly because combined vote of SP and PBP would be greater than GPs.

Euro tallies

Sat May 24, 2014 20:56

Boylan (SF) in Dublin sure to get in.

Ming Flanagan in Midlands North West also looks to take a seat.

Overall as in the Locals, Sinn Fein and Independents are taking all the gains.

Regrettably some people have very short memories and FF's vote has gone up about 5%.

Don't vote for Mairead McGuiness (FG). She is pro GM food & crops and anti Organic Ag

by safe food

Wed May 21, 2014 15:32

Mairead McGuniness spent years building up her green and farming image through the Ear to the Ground programme. She portrays herself as that, but she is in the pocket of the GM crop and biotech industry. She has supported introduction of GM animal feed into Ireland and the introduction of 'Low Level Presence' of GMOs. This allows for the widespread contamination of non GM crops by GM crops and opens the door to the whole thing.

Boot her out!

http://www.gmwatch.org/latest-listing/1-news-items/1302...eport

Here's another case from 2006 http://www.gmfreeireland.org/politics/index.php

On 6 November 2006, the European Parliament received a controversial draft resolution by Finnish MEP Kyosti Virrankoski entitled "Agriculture and Biotechnology: Prospects and Challenges for Agriculture in Europe", published in advance of the mid-term review of the EU Biotech Strategy scheduled for April 2007. The proposed resolution is replete with biotech industry bias and misinformation. It seeks to downgrade the status of the Precautionary Principle in EU law, to discredit the scientific evidence that GM crops do not perform as expected, to bolster the myth that GM crops will end world hunger, and to support giant agri-biotech corporations which want to seize control of European agricultural seeds through GMO crop patents. Irish MEPs Liam Aylward, Marian Harkin and Kathy Sinnott strongly criticised the text, amidst EU-wide calls for the Resolution to be withdrawn.

Since then, MEPs from political parties across the EU submitted 190 amendments to the draft text. On 24 January 2007, the amended text was voted on by MEP members of the EU Parliament Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development. The two Irish MEPs on this committee are Liam Aylward (Fianna Fáil) who wants Ireland to conserve its current GMO-free status, and Mairead McGuinness (Fine Gael) who seems determined to destroy it. 15 MEPs voted against the report, 6 abstained, and 22 voted in favour.

Prime Time European election candidate debates

by T

Tue May 20, 2014 23:55

Tonight RTE aired a prime time special on debates by the European Election candidates. It was divided into two segments with those who are already MEPs and or have at least 10% of the poll as determined by opinion polls. It seems their speaking time was related to the percentages too. The first group therefore consisted of: Paul Murphy (MEP SP), Lynn Boylan (SF), Brian Hayes (FG), Emer Costello (MEP Lab), Nessa Childers (MEP, Ind) and Mary Fitzpatrick (FF).

Murphy was asked the first question and started off very well making good points, followed by Boylan who had similar arguments, although Murphy being already an MEP seemed to know the issues a bit better. Then it was onto Labour and Costello seemed unsure and on the defensive carefully avoiding any mention of the Water Charges. But when that issue arose and it was put to her, she tried to dodge the issue. Hayes as expected try to put down both Murphy and Boylan but he came across as a bit too slick and appeared to be at best distorting facts in a spat with Boylan over a costing budget by SF. Overall it came across that as FG and FF in the past, have done, they cave into big business and it always winds up that the rich do very well whenever these two main capitalist parties are in. A bit later Childers had her chance to speak and she came out very good and very strong. When asked about why she left the Labour party, she stated that they left her as she still had her values but they didn't have theirs. She was doing well until Murphy pointed out that she did promote the Austerity Treaty. This was after all the candidates each in turn went on about jobs and bank debt. Hayes of course used this to rattle on about how FG had to bail out the banks to help business but as pointed out by some else, that is not quite the case, because the banks are still not lending to business despite being given billions to do so.

So if I had to pick out who came out looking like the best candidate, it would have to be Paul Murphy followed by Boylan and then Childers.

The second half of the Prime Time focused on the other candidates with less than 10% of the poll and this consisted of Brid Smith (PBP), Eamon Ryan (GP) and Damien Wise (FisNua) and two candidates from Direct Democracy Ireland, Tom Darcy and Raymond Whitehead. They were realistic that they weren't going to get it, but it was clever that they ran two candidates, since it may have given them a bit more air time and the whole process seems to have brought their party the public attention that they require to highlight what they are about.

In this debate Brid Smith came out as an able speaker and campaigner and was more convincing their Eamon Ryan. The problem with Ryan is that there is still a lot of people out there would like the Green Party to succeed and do things along green and ecological lines, but Ryan is far too much to the right and into the market. He hardly ever mentions anything about zero growth or steady-state economy. As a representative of the green movement, he is not giving any voice to their real core concerns of that movement. In fact Damien Wise, who it would appear has perhaps little TV or speaking experience made more references to the true spirit of what sustainability is actually about, although he fell down in other places due to lack of clarity.

The two candidates from DDI used their time well and Whitehead just came across better although he didn't elaborate clearly enough on some of the key issues of the party which is about re-introducing Swiss style means of referenda by collecting enough signatures. It seems we had something like this in our constitution but one of FF / FG removed it very early on in the early days of the state.

The worrying development of a new Irish ultra right, racist party: NIP (national independence party - a kind of Irish UKIP)

by Dunk - Human being, against racism

Tue May 20, 2014 14:51

Whats the story with NIP, the irish version of UKIP, imagine they will quickly get support, plenty of willingness for such a racist platform in ireland... NIP IT IN THE BUD!

Like many, I'm worried about the growth, AGAIN, of the ultra right, neo fascists in Europe. Last night the Irish public watched the RTE debate, where we saw the newest attempt at such a group in Ireland, a group of racists who want to get rid of migrants from Europe. We saw Peter O'Loughlin, of the National Independent Party, he sees himself as the front of an Irish UKIP. Worrying!

- RTÉ Radio 1: National Independent Party (radio discussion)
http://www.rte.ie/radio/utils/radioplayer/rteradioweb.html#!rii=9:20506837:0

The European Project launched after the devastation of the Second World War faces the most serious threat in its history from a recently launched pan European alliance of far right parties who are vowing to ‘slay the monster in Brussels’ – so says John Palmer European commentator and journalist. Sean spoke to John Palmer this morning as well as Peter O’Loughlin spokesperson for the National Independent Party launched this week.

- National Independent Party: Ireland’s UKIP? Exposing far-right’s ‘start-up’ contradictions | Memet Uludag
http://minordetailsnews.net/article/national-independen...-ukip

Peter O’Loughlin of NIP stated that the party’s position on immigration is “simply a question of numbers, not of ethnicity”.

Soon, Mr. O’Loughlin will possibly discover it himself but, in politics surely nothing is just ‘simply’ one thing or the other. The bottom line for UKIP is its far-right, anti-immigrant, race based (aka ‘racist’) politics and the bottom line for NIP seems to be the same.

How can a party that - simply - identifies and categorizes people by race and ethnicity, in other words, originally non-Irish people, the migrants, and then claim that this is not about ethnicity but simply about numbers. Mr. O’Loughlin contradicts himself in his own statement. Are we to assume that NIP is not going to do politics based on ethnicity and race? But they are going to focus on migrants, and to do so they will have to use ethnicity and race.

- Discussion on thumped.com about NIP, Irish fascists
http://thumped.com/bbs/threads/national-independent-par...2603/

"A representative of this crowd is on radio right now. Happily accepting plaudits from UKIP and matter of factly discussing The National Front as fellow travelers in the 'war' that is currently raging in Europe"

+ a funny fellows comment:

"They need badges : 'I'M IN THE NIP'

useful background info

by Seoirse

Mon May 12, 2014 23:46

As an emigrant I won't be able to vote in the Euro election, but thanks to the writer for the succinct background information on those left-leaning candidates in Dublin. Maybe other writers could do something similar for the other, spread out, constituencies.

forecast

by An old woman with a crystal ball - Thrown out of them all !

Sun May 11, 2014 22:48

There are a few in this list that are merely using the opportunity to gain some fame and be in a better position to contest a Dail seat next time out.
- Eamon Ryan of the Green Party
- Mary Fitzpatrick of FF

Eamon Ryan hasn’t a snowflake’s hope in hell of getting elected to Strasbourg, and he knows it. He has the dosh to spurge on a Euro election campaign, and get media time, people chatting about the election and so on. He may not even contest his old Dail constituency of Dublin South next time. This kinda of fame makes him known around the city.

What a better way to remind people of a Green party that is not associated with FF, the IMF, selling out on Shannon Warport and Rossport (the list goes on) than to link the Green Party in the minds of the plebes with the European Parliament. Ah the glory days, Patricia McKenna, political principles, international agreements, ahhh !

Mary Fitzpatrick equally doesn’t have a chance and she also equally knows it. She intends to be the first FF TD in Dublin to be re-elected in the next Gen El. There is a vacuum within FF at the moment and she wants to make her mark on the future of the party.

My call for the election is thus

1 FG (alas)
1 SF
with a hell of a dog-fight between Paul Murphy and Nessa Childers with Ms Childers clinching it in the end

As these elections go, this will be interested to watch

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The Dublin Euro MEP Election Candidates

Comments (14 of 14)