WITH ONE MONTH to go until the by-election, Dublin Central’s left-wing candidates kicked off the official campaign last night with a call to vote left, transfer left. 

The delivery of the message was somewhat lacklustre from the candidates themselves, however. 

“I wanted to be out canvassing tonight, but here we are,” Sinn Féin’s Janice Boylan told attendees at the outset of the evening’s event in Parnell Street’s Teachers’ Club. 

Organised by Connigh Clé (Keep Left), an organisation formed by activists involved in Catherine Connolly’s presidential campaign, the evening brought together the Dublin Central candidates from Sinn Féin, Labour, People Before Profit, the Greens and the Social Democrats for a panel discussion moderated by The Ditch journalist Eoghan McNeill. 

The candidates outlined their own pitches to voters and shared their views on a number of topics, ranging from this month’s fuel protests and the use of the Irish tricolour to their take on the politics of Dublin Central as a constituency.

While all of the candidates played nicely and didn’t take any direct shots at each other, there were some points of tension throughout the discussion, with the idea of ‘left unity’ looking particularly shaky at times.

This was perhaps most evident when each candidate was given the opportunity to outline their views on the fuel protests. 

Labour’s Ruth O’Dea was met with laughs and jeers from the audience when she compared the methods of the fuel protesters with those of the water protesters. 

“Yes, of course, everyone’s got a right to protest, they don’t have a right to blockade though. They don’t have a right to block streets. The water protesters worked within the parameters of how you protest,” O’Dea said, as Sinn Féin’s Janice Boylan shook her head in disagreement beside her and members of the audience laughed. 

“What I’m saying is, the Government has not given a proper package to working people with the cost of living crisis,” O’Dea said, adding that the average worker was made no better off as a result of the half a billion euro package that was announced in response to the fuel protest. 

Social Democrats candidate Daniel Ennis and Green Party candidate Janet Horner made similar arguments against the methods used by the fuel protesters. 

Horner said it was her view that the protest was not “legitimate”. 

She compared the handling of the fuel protests with the handling of the protest by Debenhams’ workers five years ago. 

“When you contrast the treatment of the Debenhams workers with the treatment of vehicles that were parked on a street, the vehicles were treated with more respect than people are when it comes to your ability to protest. That struck me as incredibly problematic,” Horner said. 

Ennis, by comparison, said he “completely agreed with the genuine protest and the cause” but “didn’t agree with the location”. 

He said the protesters would have been better off protesting outside the constituency offices of the Taoiseach and Tánaiste. 

Meanwhile, Sinn Féin’s Janice Boylan said she supported the fuel protests because she had to stand with her community.

She pointed to the water protests as a positive example.

“It was very, very successful. But did it start successfully? Absolutely not, there were groups of people who met for those first initial talks who didn’t want different political parties involved…but you have to put their ego to the side sometimes and go with what the community is saying,” Boylan said. 

She added that people shouldn’t be afraid to protest because a movement or cause might be disrupted by the far-right.

Meanwhile, People Before Profit’s candidate Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin argued that the protesters won because they were disruptive. 

He linked his comments back to an earlier discussion on Dublin City Council’s decision to increase rents for social housing and HAP tenants late last year.

“It would be great if council tenants who are fighting back had tractors and lorries to park up and block up O’Connell Street, and if they did, I would completely support them,” he said. 

Ó Ceannabháin argued that the left urgently needs to act on the momentum of the fuel protest and build on it to fight for further cost-of-living supports. 

He warned that if the left doesn’t tap into the anger that is out there, the far-right will, and will gain from it. 

‘Time and a place’ for the Irish flags?

Another moment that acutely highlighted the different views of the candidates came during a discussion on the use of the Irish flag by anti-immigration activists. 

The issue was brought up by Labour’s candidate, Ruth O’Dea, who was speaking about how, for some residents in Dublin Central, there is a sense of disconnect from the political system. 

“There is something in the atmosphere at the moment that can turn people towards ‘to hell with the lot of yous’… And then it gets manipulated and then the tricolours go up and then you don’t know what to do basically,” she said.

O’Dea said that the flag was being put up in parts of Dublin Central to “claim territory” and that the flag was being “misrepresented” and was sending a “message to people who looked different”. 

When asked by McNeill what the flag means to her, O’Dea answered: 

“Well, the flag to me has a time and a place basically. The flag is there at moments of national pride and identity, so at a football match, at the Olympics, outside the GPO to commemorate the Easter Rising, that’s where I would have the flag, and that’s where I would honour and respect the flag. 

“But throwing flags up on lamp posts illegally and doing it as a way to claim territory along whole stretches of streets, with no permission, is a misrepresentation of the flag.” 

Sinn Féin’s Janice Boylan took a different view. 

“That’s our flag. We should be absolutely proud of it. I remember living in the flats when the Ireland team were playing, and the flats would be painted green, white and orange… That’s our flag.

“They took it to use it for division and hatred but that’s our responsibility to take that back, to get it back to what it means. 

“It means unity, it means peace, it means community. And when we have conversations around the flag, we have to be very careful…don’t give that space to those far-right agitators who have tried to take it over,” she said. 

Portfolios 

Another insightful moment came in response to a question from a member of the audience, who asked what portfolio each candidate would like to hold for their party if elected to the Dáil.

Ó Ceannabháin had left at this stage (he had a prior commitment performing at a Palestinian charity event), so he didn’t get to tell us his, but the others gave varying responses. 

Ennis said he would choose to be the Social Democrats spokesperson for sports.

“Sport was very, very important to me growing up, and I think it’s the strongest tool that we have around integration, around intervention,” he said.

“I know the power of sport, and I’ve seen sports tackle racism in my community, directly head on and bring people together.

“And sport is the ultimate youth diversion program, bar none. Like I have a family member who was the same age as me, and if it wasn’t for a concrete slab football pitch, I’d be in Mountjoy prison with him now. So I know the power of sport,” Ennis said. 

Labour’s O’Dea said she would choose to be her party’s justice spokesperson. 

“I’ll take Jim O’Callaghan on any day of the week and twice on Sunday,” she said. 

In particular, she said she was “horrified” by the legislation being brought forward by the Justice Minister, which limits family reunification for migrant workers. 

O’Dea said it was the State’s treatment of refugees and the homeless which gives her her “fire in my belly”. 

Meanwhile, the Greens’ Janet Horner joked that of all the candidates that were participating in tonight’s event, she was the one to offer the best “value for money”, given that if she were to be elected, she would be doubling the Greens’ representation in Dáil Éireann. 

She declined to give one specific policy area that she would like to be a spokesperson for, but said priority policy areas for her would include homelessness and moving away from fossil fuel reliance.

Sinn Féin’s Janice Boylan also declined to say which spokesperson role she would like.

“I’m not a one-trick pony,” she said. 

“I’d gladly take a backseat, a backbencher position so that I can talk on all of the issues,” she said, adding, however, that key issues for her are housing and special education. 

The election will be held on 22 May. 

You can read more about all of the Dublin Central and Galway West candidates here.