*Cillian Murphy, Micheál Martin & Cllr Rita McInerney.
EX COUNCILLOR, Cillian Murphy (FF) has nailed his colours to the mast and rowed in fully behind the campaign of Cllr Rita McInerney (FF).
Murphy who served for five years on Clare County Council up until losing his seat in June has publicly declared his support for the Doonbeg woman in a bid to try have a West Clare voice in Government.
It comes as momentum appears to be growing in West and North Clare to elect a candidate from the area with support understood to be rising for Cllr McInerney, Senator Roisin Garvey (GP) and Dr Tom Nolan (FG) in recent days.
A drop in Murphy’s vote from 1,100 in 2019 to 1,011 in 2024 saw the Kilkee man emerge as one of the big casualties for Fianna Fáil in the June local elections.
Tánaiste Micheál Martin (FF) told The Clare Echo in the aftermath of this setback for the party, “I was very disappointed at losing Cillian Murphy”. He added, “it is an awful pity. I didn’t get into the specifics of every local electoral area, there is a constituency committee that examined it, they got some right and they got some wrong but we will evaluate that, it is one that got away and we should not have lost that seat”.
Fianna Fáil’s leader was in Clare for a canvass with all three of their General Election candidates, Cllr McInerney, Cathal Crowe TD (FF) and Senator Timmy Dooley (FF).
After meeting the Tánaiste in Kilrush on Sunday, Murphy in a statement to The Clare Echo outlined, “It was great to meet Tanaiste Micheál Martin this morning while out canvassing for Cllr Rita Mc Inerney and I fully support her bid for the Dáil in the upcoming General Election”.
He added, During my term as a Councillor, the complaint I heard most about was the lack of meaningful investment by national government into West Clare. Well you know what, it shouldn’t come as any surprise, in the last General Election over 10,000 votes, approximately 50% of votes cast, in the West Clare MD were for representatives from Ennis, Shannon, East and South East Clare and it’s been 20 years or more since we had a Government TD from back in West Clare. Those 10,000 votes really come back to haunt us when we look at the poor state of our roads, our water and wastewater infrastructure, and the lack of real investment, not promises, into all of this most basic infrastructure needed to support thriving sustainable communities in West Clare”.
Work of the county’s Oireachtas members was acknowledged by Murphy. “Credit where it’s due, for my term as a councillor Cathal Crowe TD never left a single call or email from me unanswered, but the facts are, these are a basic function of any TDs office, and any TDs office can do it”.
Cillian continued, “What we really miss here in West Clare is a voice at the Government table that prioritizes West Clare when those really really big strategic decisions, that will deliver long term future benefits for us, are being made. With the best respect in the world, it is only natural that those voices from other parts of the county will prioritise their own patches, we need a Government representative who has a real life lived experience of West Clare, who drives our roads, turns on a tap, flushes a toilet, runs a business, buys a house or plays sports, in other words someone who can really relate to the issues we face every day, because they live them every day, same as us, not just once every few weeks”.
Electing a West Clare TD for a potential Government party is “in our own hands,” he stressed. “We can continue to do what we have been doing for the last 20 years, and continue to give out about the lack of meaningful Government investment in West Clare, or we, the people of West Clare, can do something different, by making sure significantly more of these 10,000 ‘out of area’ votes are cast in favor of one of our own, a West Clare candidate from a government party, Cllr Rita McInerney”.
Well-regarded for his involvement in community groups, Cillian’s backing of Rita comes as a blow to both Crowe and Dooley. Outgoing TD Crowe had been involved in Murphy’s unsuccessful re-election attempt to the Council and subsequent to this the tourism consultant had been linked as a potential parliamentary assistant for the Meelick man following James Mulhall’s exit.
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