(Niall Carson / AP)
The war lines were drawn at the start of the South Dublin Bay by-election campaign, but a wonderful challenger reversed the stage.
Thursday’s vote was billed as a head-to-head shootout between Fine Gael’s James Geoghegan and Sinn Féin’s Lynn Boylan, but chances have been significantly reduced for Labour’s Ivana Bacik.
The constituency that gave us the Rumble in Ranelagh will now produce the site of the battle of glass bottles, as housing dominates the agenda.
For Ms Bacik, a long-time senator, lawyer and criminal law professor, the delayed progression of housing in Ringsend is emblematic of why the electorate in a historically Fine Gael seat turned to it.
She told the PA news agency: “When we look at the effects of the February 2020 general election, you can say that’s why the outgoing government didn’t do well because it perceived it hadn’t kept its promises.
“The great example of this is the Irish glass bottle in Poolbeg, where 3,500 houses were expected to be built and we have not yet noticed one built there.
“He turned himself in in 2016. He was fit to go. In 2019, the deal failed. Nama had hoped to sell it to Dublin City Council so that it would remain publicly owned. “
“It’s a great opportunity. The government has taken off.
Bacik said local housing action teams have “big concerns” that the promised 900 social and housing sets on site will not be delivered.
She was speaking in the morning after an Irish Times vote put her moment at 22% in the race, James Geoghegan (27%) and well ahead of Lynn Boylan (13%).
A policy of voting left and moving left, as advocated through green candidate Claire Byrne, could simply cross the line.
He has rejected the story of a race between Fine Gael and Sinn Féin.
Responding to the Irish Times poll, he joked: “Who is a coronation?
Geoghegan challenged some of the poll’s findings, pointing to a margin of error of 4. 5%, and won more than 30% of the vote.
He denied any indications that Fine Gael had been kept off guard through the emergence of the Labour candidate.
“We are on the lookout for any candidate from one of the parties who poses a threat,” he said.
“At the end of the day, I just want to get the message across that I will have a genuine influence on the government because I will be a Fine Gael TD. “
At the launch of his crusade, Geoghegan presented himself as the candidate of the blocked generation, the guy who will take on the housing crisis, promising that under Fine Gael, space and rent costs would fall in two years.
He said the Glass Bottle site was good luck rather than a failure, he said there had been “delays”.
He said, “What other people need to know is, are new houses going to be delivered to this city?And what I’m talking about is my own registration with Dublin City Council, where I voted for 3,000 households.
“It has not been the same for any other component of this contest, adding the Labour Party, which is part of a coalition with Sinn Fein, to oppose 1,000 new homes in Santry, on Oscar Traynor Street.
He said a mix of public and personal investment is the way to build more homes, which will reduce costs once they are on the market.
“It may not happen overnight, however, it will happen in the next two or 3 years,” he said.
“You’re going to see a greater delivery of new housing in Dublin city, there’s no doubt about that. And you’re going to increase the number of other people who can have a capable home.
“There are many of those projects now, public projects that will provide affordable housing in our city. These are the main problems for other people with an average business salary to own their own home. “
Ms. Boylan said there is still a lot at stake in the by-election.
She is Sinn Féin’s spokesperson on weather justice and Seanad’s spokesperson for communications, climate action and the environment, social coverage and labour issues. She was elected to seanad last year.
The 44-year-old activist is for her paintings with families after the Stardust tragedy in 1981.
“If there was a Sinn Féin TD elected in this by-election, it would send an earthquake to the whole government,” he said.
“If other people need to do that, if they need to send that strong message, then the most productive way to do it, I would say, is to vote for myself.
“We knew this was a Bastion of Fine Gael, that it would be a war between David and Goliath sitting in a by-election.
She was the woman at the heart of the D v Ireland case when she brought a case before the European Court of Human Rights in 2002, after she was denied an abortion in Ireland.
Conroy has also pledged to combat the housing crisis, but has been criticized in weeks for comments she made years ago about a tenant in her home.
In a blog post, she criticized the tenant for cooking in her kitchen, but Ms. Conroy said it was written as a “joke. “
Other applicants in south Dublin Bay include Justin Barrett (National Party), Sarah Durcan (Social Democrats), Jacqui Gilbourne (Renua), Brigid Purcell (People Before Profit), Mairead Toibin (Aontu) and independents Dolores Cahill, Peter Dooley, Mannix Flynn. , John Keigher and Colm O’Keefe.
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