DHU Ballygiblin resident running for local and EU elections
The political party Ireland First have confirmed they will be running a local candidate, Derek Blighe, in both the upcoming local and European elections. Mr Blighe will be contesting a seat in the Fermoy Municipal District in the local elections and in the Ireland South European Parliament constituency. Should he win a seat in both, he will be in a position to co-opt one of the seats to another Ireland First member.
IRELAND FIRST
Derek Blighe is a founding member and the president of the grassroots nationalist political party, Ireland First. A 43-year-old now living in Ballygiblin with his wife and two young sons, he was born in Mallow. Leaving school at 16, he entered the construction trade and has been a bricklater since, working in London first and subsequently spending 10 years in Canada, where he met his wife, Hannah. After moving home from Canada in 2019, Derek says he ‘quickly realised that the Ireland I had left had become something else altogether’.
“The casual conversations with family members and friends now comprised of heavy, serious subjects such as homelessness, the cost of living and an increase in mental health illnesses. I could see rural Ireland was slowly dying with no investment in housing or small businesses, but an industry that has been booming in Ireland as of late is immigration, where hundreds of thousands of migrants have been allowed enter Ireland. This extra pressure on the housing market has had a detrimental impact on Irish people seeking accommodation, not to mention the impact on other overburdened, broken services such as healthcare, school and college places and bus services; basically every facet of our daily lives”.
“I’ve been very vocal over the past few years about the damage being done to our country and to our children’s future. Some may not like my approach but garnering attention to the issue was the goal and garner attention it did. I call a spade a spade. This is no time for a watered-down approach which we see adopted by many prospective councillors and politicians who are afraid of offending and who want to appeal to as many as possible”.
“I am not afraid, I am not doing this for a career, I will not be bullied or shouted down. I believe there should be term limits for politicians. People should never get comfortable in government – we need rid of ‘career politicians’”.
LOCAL ELECTIONS
Derek says that if he is elected to Cork County Council, he will demand the prioritisation of local Irish families on council housing lists and in getting school places. He also says he will be campaigning against compulsory purchase orders or ‘right-sizing’ of homes and demand a full audit of council-owned property to get an accurate view of tenant immigration status and their current condition.
“I also demand additional garda resources and I will refuse to work with IPAS, who are facilitating the mass placement of asylum seekers into local communities all over Ireland. I also vow full transparency and to that end will update my constituents daily via my large social media platforms," he claimed this week.
EUROPEAN ELECTIONS
Derek says that Ireland has an ‘opt-out clause’ on many laws that govern other countries, ‘ yet the ‘Uni-party’ currently in charge choose to implement reckless policies’.
“Some of my focus at EU level will be to secure the Irish borders by properly implementing the Dublin III regulation, which states that asylum seekers must claim asylum in the first safe country they arrive in. I will work with EU counterparts to enforce stricter border control and I will also push for an immigration audit across Europe and deport any who are found to have entered illegally or who have committed crimes since arrival,” he says.
“I vow to reclaim our waters and build back our fishing industry. The EU are currently taking 84% of our fish and in agriculture, I want to reverse reckless agricultural policies and seek to have full food security and self-sustainability”.
“I will review our participation in the destructive Climate Action plan and will eliminate carbon tax, utilise all of our natural resources in Ireland. Furthermore, Irish neutrality is enshrined in our Constitution. We will seek to review our membership of any military partnerships i.e. PESCO, or NATO”.
Mr Blighe says that Ireland First see themselves as a centre-right party.
“We aim to get to a place where we can be a conservative party. Unfortunately, what we have today is not something we want to conserve. We need to first reverse all anti-Ireland legislation and enshrine constructive pro-Ireland mandates and get to a place where all government policy being implemented is written with an Ireland First mindset”.