LAST UPDATE | 2 Jun 2021
SINN FÉIN HAS confirmed that Senator Lynn Boylan will be their candidate for the upcoming Dublin Bay South by-election.
Boylan’s candidacy will be approved at a local party convention on Friday but the deadline for nominations has passed with Boylan the only name going forward.
Last night, the party’s TD for the constituency Chris Andrews confirmed that the Inner City Cumann of the party had nominated Boylan.
The Senator had told reporters on Monday that she was “considering” putting her name forward for the by-election.
Boylan previously topped the poll in the 2014 European elections in Dublin but lost her seat in the European Parliament five years later before being elected to the Seanad last year.
It had been expected that Boylan would run for the Dáil in the nearby Dublin South West in the next general election before this by-election came about due to the departure of Fine Gael’s Eoghan Murphy.
Speaking this afternoon about her candidacy, Lynn Boylan said that the by-election was “going to be a referendum on how the government are handling housing”.
“Sinn Féin has not only been holding the government to account in their mismanagement of the housing crisis but we’ve also been putting forward credible solutions,” she said.
The Social Democrats has also confirmed that its candidate for the by-election will be Sarah Durcan.
The former Abbey Theatre board member previously ran in Dublin Bay South in last year’s general election.
Durcan said this by-election gives constituents the chance to “send a powerful message”.
“That we expect more from our politics. That everyone has a right to an affordable home. That lengthy waiting lists for medical treatment are not acceptable. That nobody should be left behind,” Durcan said in a statement.
“This by-election is not only a referendum on this government, but on a way of political thinking that has locked-out and sold-out a generation – lacking imagination, ambition and the ideals of who we truly are as a people.”
Speaking this afternoon about her candidacy, Lynn Boylan said that the by-election was “going to be a referendum on how the government are handling housing”.
“Sinn Féin has not only been holding the government to account in their mismanagement of the housing crisis but we’ve also been putting forward credible solutions,” she said.
The addition of Boylan and Durcan to the race means that all of the major political parties apart from Fine Gael are running female candidates in a constituency that is currently represented by three men.
Among those currently confirmed for the by-election are: Cllr. James Geoghegan (Fine Gael), Cllr. Deirdre Conroy (Fianna Fáil), Senator Ivana Bacik (Labour), Brigid Purcell (People Before Profit), Peter Dooley (Independent) and Cllr. Mannix Flynn (Independent).
The Green Party will finalise their candidate on Friday, with councillors Hazel Chu and Claire Byrne contesting for the party’s nomination.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say