COUNCILLORS’ move last month against nominating a candidate for the upcoming presidential election on October 24 was strongly criticised by local Green Party councillor Seán Hartigan.
On a post on social media, Cllr Hartigan took aim at Council members “that actively blocked honest, decent, hardworking people with years of public service from getting on the presidential ballot sheet”.
The very same people, he hit out, “are now crying because they don’t have anyone to vote for”.
“Ashford man Gerben Uunk, Knockainey’s Dr Donnacha MacGabhann, plus Maria Steen of Dublin, and Cllr Kieran McCarthy of Cork were all nominated and seconded by Limerick councillors,” Cllr Hartigan said of a recent meeting to decide on the Council’s formal nomination.
“When Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael realised that the contemporary voting system would result in one of the nominated candidates getting approval from Limerick Council, they changed the system,” he claimed.
The Green Party councillor claimed that “under the new system, before there was a vote to pick a nominated candidate, there was a vote on the suitability of each candidate to be a candidate”.
“Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael spent hours dreaming up this convoluted system to block anyone else from getting on the ballot as per orders from their masters in Leinster House.
“Of course FFG voted that all four were unsuitable. This type of shenanigans was replicated by councils throughout the country which, along with the poor judgement of the Fianna Fáil top brass, has resulted in the situation where we have now … two names on the ballot.”
Hartigan continued: “When FFG were doing this, did they care if a proportion of the population had someone on the ballot that they believed would represent them? Like hell they did, they don’t believe in democracy, they believe in winning at any cost, this has now backfired for them and they are moaning because they are disenfranchised.”
Cllr Hartigan claimed that Cllr Michael Collins was “particularly vitriolic in his opposition to all four candidates, feeling the need to oppose the claim from another councillor that Dutch-born Gerben Uunk was from Limerick”.
“What an example he is setting now by encouraging people not to vote. Fortunately, there is a candidate on the ballot that will represent all bar FFG, vote for honesty, vote for democracy, vote for change.”