Ó Cadhla is standing in Cork North Central.

Here is a copy of my election flyer.

Are you happy with the direction our country has taken?

Can senior citizens feel secure, can they be confident that Health and Home Care is available? Can those in need of housing, to rent or buy, feel confident that they will find it?

Can school or college graduates find and get real employment, so that they can start families and live within their own community?

Why has uncertainty, disrespect and fear become part of our lives?

Bank Bondholders were pleased that their gambling losses were paid. The ECB was happy to get its ‘pound of flesh’, after threatening that a “bomb will go off in Dublin”, the rogue developers were paid by NAMA.

Can members of successive Governments who squandered public money be confident that their pensions are secure? As they raise the pension qualifying age limit for the rest of us?

Neither the Banks nor the powerful vested interests who rule have any doubt about their future – they and their Party politicians take and take, with a sense of entitlement that would match any feudal aristocrat.

No matter which Party is ‘in power’ they won’t rock the boat too much.

Behind all of the problems we face is the simple fact that we citizens do not decide the policy of our own state – private vested interests do.

Is this what we want for Ireland?

Is this what the men and women of 1916 stood for?

Is this what our own Tomás MacCurtáin and Terence MacSwiney, and so many more, gave their lives for?

It need not be so.

We should have greater expectations for our future, we have a very rich country, full of resources. We need courage, it is time for that now.

I am asking for your vote, making only one promise… that I will fight for your rights. You will have a TD who believes in Ireland, who can, and does speak up for the people.

Your servant,