Clare Daly was an MEP from 2019-2024, losing her seat at the recent European elections. A close ally of Mick Wallace, she was a Fingal County Councillor from 1999 until being elected to the Dail as a TD for Dublin North in the 2011 General Election. She has faced criticism for her stance towards countries like Russia, China, and Iran.

I was asked to run in the area to try and win back that progressive, strong, community-based independent that Dublin Central has always had, from Maureen O’Sullivan to Tony Gregory and others, and which is currently glaringly absent in the Dáil. No matter what government is in power, we need a strong voice to shed light on the huge issues people are currently facing.

There are so many issues that it’s impossible to single out just one. The crises in housing, health, cost-of-living, education, social care, infrastructure; the stifling by corporate interests of our ability to tackle the existential threat of climate change - they’re all linked to the subjugation of our economy to private vested interests, and all other things flow from that. Successive governments have given us a society with record inequality, and have consistently prioritised private interests who want to make a profit over the provision of public services based on public need. That has to change, or we’re headed for an even darker place than where we are now.

It would have to be Palestine. I’ve been one of the strongest voices in Europe on the genocide in Palestine, and the staggering brutality of Israel’s violence, the bonfire of international law, the complicity of western leaders, and what it bodes for the future of the world if we don’t stop it. Humanity is on trial here and Ireland is complicit. All those in the halls of power who have made Ireland complicit need to answer for that.