People Before Profit have selected James Renaghan to be their Louth candidate in the general election

People Before Profit have selected Dundalk’s James Renaghan to be their Louth candidate in the general election.

A former Dundalk FC youth player, James worked in finance but returned to college and now is graduating with a Masters in Politics completing his dissertation in young people and the labour movement.

James was a student housing activist with the National Student Action Group and involved in Action For Palestine Ireland.

He is a co-founder of the Rank & File collective which creates protest art against homelessness.

More recently he has been a leading member of Dundalk Communities United, an anti-racist grassroots initiative seeking to build community solidarity whilst agitating against government neglect.

Speaking on his motivation for running as a socialist candidate James said: “My dad is a security guard and my mam is a cleaner, having grown up in one of many diverse working class housing estates in Dundalk and experienced how we have been continuously neglected by successive governments has encouraged me to run on behalf of our areas.

“I worked in finance for years and saw how inhumane it all is saving up to return to college whilst friends emigrated.

“The genocide in Palestine was a radicalising moment, the same imperialist system that brutalises the Palestinians is the same system that keeps working class people here in poverty.

“The long standing social issues in Ireland are caused by the profound levels of inequality within society, people are trying to divide working class areas in Dundalk on this issue scapegoating migrants and not the rich.

“I was dismayed at loyalist collaborators welcomed down to Dundalk to protest refugees after the devastation caused by loyalism in the north of Ireland and here in the town in the 70’s.

“Working class people need to unite and fight like we did on the water charges, join a trade union and build back community that has been lost over the austerity years.”

James said he intends to use the election as a platform for socialist politics, calling for the banning of vulture funds, the establishment of a state construction company to build public housing and seriously tackling property dereliction.

He said he will be calling for Irish ties with US imperialism to be cut by ending the US military use of Shannon Airport and abolishing the anti-worker 1990 Industrial Relations Act to give power back to workers.