Nash re-elected in Louth and pledges focus on housing, services, and child poverty

Labour’s Ged Nash was the third TD to be elected, with the Drogheda man surpassing the quota on the 20th count and retaining his seat in the Dail.

Nash said he was, “Really pleased with the vote right across the county. We haven’t seen the final tallies, yet but the vote is significantly up in Dundalk South, Dundalk-Carlingford and Ardee as well. A better spread around the county than the previous election and the one before so very pleased with that.”

Asked what were the main issues he was encountering on the doorstep, he said, “Housing was everything in this election and principally it was mams and dads concerned about their kids who were working hard in their 20s and 30s and still living at home and couldn’t afford their own place either to rent or to buy. There’s nobody on the doors asking me for tax cuts. What they’re looking for is services for their children with disabilities and getting assessments and needs and the supports and therapies that their children need.

“We have exceptionally long waiting lists here in Louth when it comes to basic services, and that needs to change. It really chimed with the Labour message that what we are not about tax cuts that supposedly benefit the better off, but the kind of investment in public services that we need in what I have always described as a rich country that feels too poor for too many.

“We have particular problems in Drogheda around dereliction and vacancy and around figuring out what our town centre is really for. There’s probably a good marriage of circumstances now of some experienced voices now in the Dail and some new voices that can work with the new council chief executive to really declare war on vacancy and dereliction and help turn my home town around.

“But the thing about it is that a lot of the issues we face in Drogheda are the same in Dundalk and one of the things I’m always talking about, and far few people do in both Dundalk and Drogheda is that we have unacceptable levels of poverty in certain areas and the next government has a job of work to do, particularly to address child poverty. We’ve not seen that from the outgoing government, and that’s one of the reasons I want to be in the next government, is to be a senior minister who can address those inequalities in our society.”

Discussing the prospect that his party may be involved in the formation of the next government, he said it was a possibility “but not at any price.”

“It is our intention in the Labour Party to first talk to our colleagues in the Social Democrats to see if we can form a progressive alliance to negotiate a progressive programme for government.

“As I said, this is a rich country that feels all too poor for so many people, services aren’t working, they’re simply not there. It shouldn’t be a case of Irish exceptionalism. We’re either a rich country or we’re not. We’re a rich country that has decided not to have the public services they have in Denmark and Sweden, countries that we like to compare ourselves against., so we need to work on that. I believe that can only be changed by having a party like Labour in government.

“It is a possibility but not at any price, it looks now like the independents are going to be the cheap dates we always knew they were, the odd road and maybe train station they’ll go into government, the bargain that we will drive will be much much harder. We’re a national party with experience of being in government, it hasn’t always been a rewarding experience, but we’ve always put the country first and I don’t want to see Fine Gael and Fianna Fail waste the prosperity that this country has and it needs to be more equally shared.”