INDEPENDENT DECLARES CANDIDACY
A POLL-TOPPING Independent councillor who helped expose serious financial mismanagement at an education and training board is the latest to announce their Dáil bid.
Fiona McLoughlin Healy last night launched her campaign to win one of the four seats in the Kildare South constituency.
Cllr McLoughlin Healy topped the poll in the Newbridge ward in last year’s local elections with 2,331 first preference votes – more than double that received by the two elected Fine Gael councillors combined.
Launching her campaign last night, Cllr McLoughlin Healy said: ‘One thing is for sure, the poll-topping vote I received in the local elections last May was not a vote for the status quo. It was a clear mandate to continue to challenge the unquestioning consensus politics that has pervaded the Kildare South constituency for decades, to the detriment of a large portion of its constituents,’ she said.
She was first elected to Kildare County Council in 2014 as a Fine Gael candidate. Since being elected to the county council she has highlighted issues around lack of transparency and financial mismanagement, including irregularities at the Kildare Wicklow Education Training Board.
She resigned from Fine Gael in 2018 citing issues around gender, transparency and isolation within the party. She previously ran in the 2016 general election for the party. Ten other candidates have now declared they will contest the race for one of the three seats on offer in the recently expanded fourseater constituency. Ceann Comhairle Seán Ó Fearghaíl is automatically returned to the Dáil unless he retires, which he has not indicated he will.
Martin Heydon (Fine Gael) and Fiona O’Loughlin (Fianna Fáil) are both fighting to retain their seats. Cllr Suzanne Doyle (Fianna Fáil), Cllr Patricia Ryan (Sinn Féin), Cllr Mark Wall (Labour) will be hoping to trade the Kildare County Council offices for Leinster House.
The remaining candidates are Ronan Maher (Green Party), Linda Hayden (Social Democrats), Cathal Berry (Independent) and Sarah Walshe (Independent).