Emer Tóibín selected as Aontú general election candidate in Meath East

Aontú has selected Navan councillor Emer Tóibín to contest the general election in Meath East.

Cllr Tóibín, who was elected on the first count in June’s Local Elections says she is honoured to have been selected for her party, which she describes as the “only real opposition in this country”.

Her brother, Aontú leader and sitting TD, Peadar Tóibín, has already been selected to contest the election for the party in Meath West.

Cllr Tóibín said: “Aontú is a relatively new party but one that is holding a mirror up to this government and the so-called opposition parties. A bad government is being enabled by a bad opposition and it is simply not fair on the people of this country”.

“We currently have a Government that is reckless with the public purse, the most recent evidence of which is the hundreds of thousands spent on a bicycle shed and places little importance on accountability”.

“People deserve an opposition who demand accountability, not one who rows in behind a government as we saw in the Family and Care Referenda and the Contentious Hate Speech Bill. That is not opposition”

“We reel from one crisis to another; nobody faces sanction and there is no deterrence to incompetence. This Government has greatly undermined the pillars of our democracy, decimated accountability and wasted billions. The electorate, in the main, feel totally disconnected, unheard and unimportant”.

She went on to say: "Meath, the home of the Minister for Justice has the lowest ratio of gardai in the country, we have had a Minister for Health who wanted to close down the Emergency Department of Navan Hospital, and we have a Minister for Transport who is presiding over a public transport service that frankly is not fit for purpose”.

"We have boarded up houses that if in the hands of private developers would be ready to rehome people in just three weeks, yet it takes our local authority up to eight months”

“We had the shocking €26 million ‘vanity project’ for the new council chambers at Buvinda House in Navan, a construction that is completely and utterly unnecessary”.

“It is a phenomenal amount of money and badly needed homes could be built for this. I estimate it could have built up to 74 new homes. That’s 74 families, human beings crying out for a roof over their heads.

“Meath also badly needs a homeless hostel to provide help and hope to people living on the streets, and I genuinely think it is unconscionable to squander this sort of money on a new council chamber.”

“We have commuters in Meath East missing health care appointments, job interviews, flights because of the gross unreliability of our public buses”.

“The lack of accountability is one that is coming up time and time again on the doors. I want to restore people's faith in politics, democracy and in politicians. I got into politics to improve the living and working conditions of people in Navan and Meath and I am ready for an election and so are the public. In fact they’re crying out for one,” she concluded.

Meanwhile the Aontú party will hold its inaugural party think in The Kilmore Hotel, Cavan, this Saturday 14th September.