FIANNA FÁIL TD Barry Cowen has announced he will run in next year’s European Elections.
In a statement, Cowen said he informed a local party meeting that he plans to put his name forward for the elections in June 2024.
Cowen added that he wants to make sure Irish views are reflected in the European Union as the group focuses on sustainability in a variety of sectors.
This makes Cowen is the second person to confirm he will run this week after current Ireland South MEP Mick Wallace announced on Sunday that he intends to seek re-election next year.
Asked if he believes it will be a hard battle in the newly re-drawn constituency, Wallace told RTÉ’s European Parliament Report that he does and said the “biggest challenge” will be competing against Sinn Féin for a seat.
Cowen has been a TD for Laois-Offaly constituency since 2011, having previously been a councillor in Offaly for two decades.
He served as Fianna Fáil’s spokesperson for housing 2012-2018 and later public expenditure and reform from 2018-2020, while the party was in opposition.
In June 2020, Cowen was appointed as Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine but was sacked from the job after less than a month into the current government’s term after it was revealed he had a previous driving ban for a drink-driving offence.
He apologised to the Dáil for a “serious lapse in judgement” after the story was broken by the Irish Independent newspaper.
Cowen, who’s been at the centre of multiple controversies over this term as a TD in the current government, will contest in the Ireland Midlands North-West constituency.
In 2021, Cowen claimed that the energy crisis, which saw rising costs of energy for consumers due to a shrinking supply, was not a result of government policy but was “orchestrated” by the ESB, a claim rejected by the energy group.
He later claimed the ESB, Eirgrid, the Commission for the Regulation of Utilities (CRU) and Department of the Environment should be “held accountable” for being “asleep at the wheel”.
Earlier this year, Cowen said in the Dáil that extending the eviction ban would be akin to “making sweets free for children“. He later apologised to those who found the remark offensive.
Investigative journalism platform The Ditch revealed earlier this year that Cowen had not declared his rental income from 32 acres of farmland he inherited from his late mother. He confirmed he had not declared ownership of the land since 2014 to the publication.
In a statement after his announcement, Cowen said: “I will be focused on the ongoing transition led by the EU towards sustainability across many sectors key to our success as an economy – food and farming, energy and enterprise, and making sure Irish views and interests are reflected in EU policies.
“Reinstating a seat or seats here will be important for the party and I believe I can deliver that having successfully contested many elections with a strong network and family history of pro-European public service.
“I am honoured at the support from the Fianna Fáil organisation, locally and nationally, for me to pursue the nomination and to seek to win back for a seat for Fianna Fáíl in the Midlands-North-West constituency.”
Last week, the Electoral Commission recommended that the Midlands-North West constituency should gain an additional seat for European parliament elections.
The Commission, An Coimisiún Toghcháin, also recommended that the counties of Laois and Offaly transfer from the South constituency into the Midlands constituency.
Speaking on the counties transferring, Wallace said: “I got great support in Offaly the last time. The people in Offaly are bit mad, like myself.”
“It was always going to be hard for me to be re-elected. It will be harder without Offaly,” he added.
Wallace, who served as a TD for eight years previously, has too faced multiple controversies over the last four years as an MEP, particularly over his views on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
In March, Wallace was one of 13 MEPs who voted against an EU resolution condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have defended their position, saying they voted based on their stances rather than “playing to a gallery”.
He defended this vote and claimed that the EU sending of arms and ammunition to Ukraine was “madness“, a view he reiterated on Sunday.
The parliament’s standing rapporteur on Ukraine described him and fellow MEP Clare Daly as “politically irrelevant” and questioned their motivations after they chose to vote against.
He was later labelled an “embarrassment to Ireland” by Fianna Fáil senator Malcolm Byrne after footage of Wallace and Daly’s trip to Iraq was used as promotional material for a militia group.
As MEP, he sits as a member on the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, the subcommittee on Security and Defence and a member of the delegation for relations with the Arab peninsula.
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