*Dermot Hayes with the late Martin Naughton.
Dermot Hayes will run as an Independent candidate in the Ennis Municipal District for May’s local elections.
Corofin native, Hayes left The Labour Party at the end of January bringing the curtain down on his membership which lasted almost two decades. He had been nominated to contest a selection convention against Seamus Ryan but withdrew days in advance and also informed party headquarters that he was leaving Labour.
He has lived in Ennis since 1974 and ran in the 2014 local elections for Labour, he secured 333 first preference votes. However he proved to be transfer friendly and was eliminated in the sixteenth count coming close to Frankie Neylon and Ger O’Halloran both of whom were nearest to Cllr Clare Colleran Molloy in winning the final seat.
A member of the Council’s Social Development SPC, Dermot also presents Radio Beams every week on Raidió Corca Baiscinn.
In October, the disability activist called for the resignation of Cllr Gerry Flynn as Cathaoirleach of the SPC however at the December meeting the Shannon councillor received a vote of confidence from SPC members.
His campaign will be officially launched in the coming weeks. “I want to work with people around social housing, disabilities and community groups, travellers. We’ve got an influx of people from abroad, we’ve a lot of lovely immigrants here in this country and we need to be including them in society, I feel they’re left out and not being included which is very damaging to society in the long run, whether it’s sport or tidy towns we need to be including them and make special provision. I know there’s multiple migrants of different nationalities when you look at the local convent school there’s 42 nationalities there which is great in one way, so much to be learned and enjoyed by that but they need to be included in our society, there is a danger we are going to fracture our society in years to come unless we do something,” he told The Clare Echo.
