AONTÚ party leader, Peader Tóibín visiting Ennis to attend a public meeting on crime in the county on Thursday of last week, has confirmed that Clare is a target for his party in both the next local and general elections.
The party which is self-described as “Ireland’s fastest growing political movement” is looking to the county of Éamon deValera and Paddy Hillery to win council seats in 2029 and to gain a seat in the next general election.
“Strategy wise, Clare is a target for us. There is no doubt the next elections are probably likely to be the locals although you couldn’t rule out some instability in the government in in the next two or three years. So in the next local elections, we are determined to take council seats in Clare, there is absolutely no doubt about that,” Mr Toibín revealed to The Clare Champion ahead of the meeting in Treacy’s West County Hotel.
On what was his second official visit to Clare, he praised the level of commitment in the local organisation describing the 50-strong cumann as a “good strong local cumann” who have been an activist campaigning group where they can expect to see strong growth.
The party fielded its first general election candidate in county Clare last year in June Dillon, a registered nurse from west Clare who took an impressive 2,857 votes as a first time candidate. And the party was “delighted” with her performance, according to its leader.
“I probably did my first public meeting in Clare five years ago now, and Clare was a tougher county to crack to a certain extent,” he said.
“We always had a good residual support an organisation here but we found it easier to grow in other counties and I think that is because Clare has been such a stronghold for Fianna Fáil for years but definitely in the last 18 months, there has been a significant support in the uptake of Aontú in Clare.
“And I think with June coming on – she is an absolutely great candidate, so hard-working, so focused. She’s really energetic and she has a love of her county. And I think that has turbo boosted the county’s support here now…What we are aiming to do now is to get stuck in to campaigns. We are very much a campaigning political party.”
Emphasising that the closure of the A & E at Ennis General Hospital is “definitely” an underlying issue, he referenced how Navan went through a similar experience as the mid-west region. He is the chair of the Save Navan Hospital Campaign which organised people onto the streets in their
tens of thousands to protest the planned closure of Navan, which they subsequently managed to keep open.
“It is very clear the closure of Ennis A & E was a massive piece of damage to the health service in this region…from Tipperary across to here and including Clare, it is definitely an underlying issue.
“We are growing nationally; one of the reasons is we are militating against the whole centralised nature of the state. Ireland is growing into a city state in many ways. Many young people have to leave to go to Dublin to get work…that is having a resonance in a place like Clare.
“We have been very strong in the agriculture sector as well. We brought a bill in to put a floor under beef farmers’ incomes because a lot of the factories and supermarkets are forcing prices down currently on farmers, and I think that is having a resonance here in Clare.
“Half the work we have done in the last six years is to being up a local organisation and most parties don’t being much store in local organisations – we are the opposite…. we believe if you want to grow you have to have a grass-roots organisation.”
Nationally, Aontú has eight seats in local authorities, two TDs in the Dáil, and one senator.
The party also had the biggest increase in vote of any organisation in the country.
In Clare, Seamus Enright represents the organisation in Ennis, and June Dillon in West Clare.
Sharon Dolan D’Arcy covers West Clare news. After completing a masters in journalism at University of Galway, Sharon worked as a court reporter at the Sligo Weekender. She was also editor of the Athenry News and Views.