*Michael Leahy. Photograph: John Mangan
COROFIN ARCHITECT and planner, Michael Leahy (IFP) is to run in next year’s European elections.
Kerry native Michael moved to Kilrush when he was aged fourteen and has lived in Co Clare since, he now resides in Corofin with his wife.
He is Chairman and Director of Finance within the Irish Freedom Party. For the first time, the party will field candidates in each of the three constituencies for the European elections with Michael running in Ireland South.
In 1986, he set up his own practice which is located in Ennis. From 1993 to 1995, he was President of the Ennis Chamber of Commerce.
Leahy spent five years as a board member of An Bord Pleanála from 2012 to 2017.
This will not be Michael’s first time running for office. He was an unsuccessful candidate for Ennis Town Council in 1995 while for the 2020 General Election, he represented the Irish Freedom Party, polling 704 first preferences and was eliminated on the third count.
On his bid to become an MEP, Michael said it was important to give an alternative to what he labelled the “the Uniparty” of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Sinn Féin and the Greens. There is widespread public dissatisfaction among the general public on a significant range of issues on which there is universal agreement among the main parties”.
He stated, “There is at present a political unanimity on such issues as climate change and the imposition of destructive carbon charges which will destroy agriculture, on the mass importation of totally unvetted and migrants without consideration to the impacts on housing and services”.
Availability of LGBTQ+ reading materials for children at libraries across the country has seen members of the Irish Freedom Party involved in various protests. He claimed, “No mainstream party will stand up against the introduction of highly pornographic material into schools and children’s libraries, and no party will defend the public against government attacks against freedom of speech and the introduction of bogus crimes against ordinary people”.
Policies of IFP have been met with support but also “a blackout by the mainstream national media,” he said. “Many parents are deeply worried at the attacks against the innocence of children, at the introduction of pornography in schools and the promotion of gender ideology and critical race theory as accepted facts in our schools. Many women are deeply concerned at the state promotion of the transgender ideology which humiliates and denigrates women”.
His support of a demonstration against mass migration saw him involved in a clash with representatives of the Clare Solidarity Network. “Rural Ireland is under sustained attack as never before, with direct attacks on agriculture, travel costs and rural housing”.
Though seeking a seat on the European Parliament, Michael is supportive of a dissolution of the European Union, he also predicted “the Eurosceptic block will be by far the biggest block in the parliament” following next year’s election. “The possibility of Ireland simply exiting the EU is problematic unless a similar position is adopted by a large number of other states, and it is this policy of isolating states which enables the EU to inflict so much damage on its members, particularly its smaller members. The EU is not so much a union, as a political cartel held together by fear and bullying”.
