Sinn Féin announce local candidates for Dublin Mid-West

Dublin Mid-West Sinn Féin will run 10 candidates in the Dublin Mid-West region in next year’s local elections.

The party recently selected 10 candidates to contend the three Local Electoral Areas in the Dublin Mid-West area for the 2024 Local Elections.

The party currently has two sitting Councillors in the Dublin Mid-West area, and five councillors on South Dublin County Council overall.

Sinn Féin TD Eoin Ó Broin has been appointed as the Director of Elections for the three LEAs of Lucan, Palmerstown/Fonthill and Clondalkin and offered a breakdown of what his party hopes to achieve next June.

The area, which is a Sinn Féin stronghold after Eoin Ó Broin was elected on the first count and Mark Ward was elected on the second count in the 2020 general election, is representative of Sinn Féin’s ambitions at a local level next year.

It can be surmised that the party is betting on its strength in the area and will look to replicate that success at a local level following a disappointing showing in the 2019 local elections.

The full-tilt approach can be best seen in the Clondalkin and Palmerstown/Fonthill areas, where the party ran two candidates in 2019 and will now be running four candidates apiece in 2024.

Ó Broin said that the local elections will give voters an “opportunity to vote for real change.”

“Since 2019 South Dublin County Council has been led by a coalition of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. Since 2020, these same political parties have been in coalition in the Dáil. During that time there has been growing frustration locally with both the failure of the Council and the failures of Government.”

He said that people in the area “want better local services, and they want the crises in housing and health addressed.”

“They want a government that will support workers and families through the cost-of-living crisis,” he said.

“Next year’s local election, and possible general election, will provide voters with an opportunity to vote for real change and Sinn Féin will be standing the maximum number of candidates to deliver that change.”

Ó Broin was confident in his Sinn Féin’s chances, saying they have selected a “really strong slate of candidates for the three Local Electoral Areas within the Dublin Mid-West constituency.”

“Our sitting Councillors Derren Ó Bradaigh and William Carey will be recontesting, alongside former SDCC Councillor Ruth Nolan.”

The selection of Nolan is something of a surprise, as Nolan, who lost her seat in the 2019 local elections, was previously a member of Independents4Change.

Local train driver Joe Nugent, schoolteacher and Gaelgeoir Cathal Ó Murchu, constituency worker with Mark Ward TD Daniel Loftus, business analyst Rosemary Masinga, disability and youth worker Emma McCormack, mental health worker Niamh Fennell and tutor with children with intellectual disabilities Lorainne Dwyer have been selected to contend the

“I am particularly delighted that our slate is representative of the diversity of our community. We have a 50:50 gender split, a great balance of youth and experience and a slate representative of the cultural diversity of our great community,” he noted.

“Sinn Féin’s candidates will all be contesting to win their respective contested seats and have already started knocking on doors to listen to the concerns of local communities and to engage people who are hungry for real change both at local and central Government level.”

Candidates selected by LEA:

Clondalkin

Cllr William Carey

Emma McCormack

Rosemary Masinga

Joe Nugent

Palmerstown/Fonthill

Daniel Loftus

Niamh Fennell

Ruth Nolan

Cathal Ó Murchu

Lucan

Cllr Derren Ó Bradaigh

Lorraine Dwyer