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FINE GAEL TD Fergus O’Dowd faces a challenge to hold onto his Dáil seat from his own brother who will be running for Renua in the next general election.
Michael O’Dowd has been selected as Renua’s candidate in five-seat Louth, setting up a tantalising election battle with his brother who is a former junior minister.
A former mayor of Drogheda, Michael O’Dowd quit Fine Gael to join Renua earlier this year. The accountant, who works with Enterprise Ireland, had previously failed to hold onto his county council seat in Louth in last year’s local elections.
This followed Fine Gael’s controversial decision to run five candidates, including Fergus’s son, Garrett, in the 10-seat Drogheda area. However, the party only took three seats with Garrett also failing to win one.
In a statement today, Michael, a married father-of-three, said that Louth needed people “who will stand up within the Dáil and the cabinet table for our county”.
Renua said in a statement that he would prioritise developing services for people with intellectual disabilities and is leading the team devising the party’s disability policy.
Fergus O’Dowd is one of two incumbent Fine Gael TDs battling it out to retain his seat in the five-seat constituency that also includes Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams.
Fine Gael is also running Peter Fitzpatrick who recently changed his mind about not defending his Dáil seat. The former Louth GAA boss previously said he would not contest the election, but he was then convinced by the party hierarchy to stand.
Fine Gael may add a third candidate to the ticket with a decision expected as early as this week.
The O’Dowds are also brothers with Niall O’Dowd, the publisher of the Irish Voice newspaper and founder of IrishCentral.com, who briefly flirted with the idea of a presidential bid in 2011.
Michael O’Dowd has previously expressed admiration for Renua leader Lucinda Creighton and her decision to quit Fine Gael and her junior ministry over the Protection of Life during Pregnancy Bill in 2013.
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If I hear anyone else say “life style choice” in relation to social welfare, I swear to God I wont be responsible!!!
The other thing that I m tired of hearing is “we need to reduce social welfare to motivate people to go back to work” Our TDs receive over €2500 pay per week, plus expenses, free transport etc and they are spending their time on how to cut child welfare by €10 and the dole by €8. Those who profit most from Irelands wealth are mostly tax exiles and pay nothing at all …is something wrong here?? Should we not be “motivating” those who earn €1 million plus to be paying their fair share?
I “live” on Social Welfare. Yes you could say it is a “lifestyle choice”. I have cardiac artery disease, diabetes and arthritis, and am on Disability Allowance. I get the same amount to exist on as someone trying to find a job. It is not a lot. In fact it is not enough. Do our T.D.s know or care? I think not. Would they do anything if they did know?
NO! Because they are not concerned about how ordinary people get by.
Oh Sugar !!
this country has thee most disconected politicians in relation to real life and how we cope and live with the decisions they make.
living on social welfare is a great lifestyle choice, i do it all the time :-P
It is an absolute disgrace what happened to Fr Kevin Reynolds and I am happy for him that his name was cleared. Why the hell won’t Dev jnr respect this mans wishes and those of Fr. Reynolds legal team?
Before cutting social welfare for single mothers, can we please first have a National plan to provide community childcare to every family? Community Childcare workers do a great job but when they have to be closed during school holidays, what’s the point?
Believe it or not, not every child in this country has a granny who can take over during school holidays.
Am I the only person who thinks the defamation by autocomplete thing is stupid? It would be like punishing a news reporter for reporting the news. It happened and people were looking up the recievership online to find out information about it so google took a popular term being used and suggested it as a search item. Google simpley did what it’s supposed to do, help people find information online in a quick manner by streamlining what is relevent to what people wanted at that time.
If the term “receivership” is now considered pejorative then google in Ireland had better beware, as the number of businesses in that situation is more likely to grow than shrink.
have your say