Speaking at a selection convention in Shantalla to ratify Councillor Helen Ogbu as the Labour Party’s Dáil candidate for Galway West, Bacik said an alliance with other, like-minded parties to exert real influence within or on the next government would be a conversation for after an election she expects in late November.
“We’re not advising candidates to arrange local vote-sharing arrangements, we want to maximise the vote for Labour,” Bacik told the Advertiser. “Myself; I’ve voted Labour number one all my life and Green, number two. We have difficulties with all three largest parties [Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Sinn Féin]. I am constantly in informal contact with other party leaders, but there’s no pact, and any type of joint platform of the Left would be based on the [Dáil] arithmetic after an election.”
“There is a proud history of Labour in Galway West, and we tripled our representation in Galway city in June,” the Dublin Bay South TD told convention attendees, referring to the election of councillors Ogbu and John McDonagh last summer alongside long-serving Labour councillor Níall McNelis. “My first-ever time canvassing was here, with Michael D Higgins, where I learned the importance of equality, solidarity and fairness,” she said. “As a five seater, Galway West is wide open,” she added.
Speaking on Tuesday night to around 100 supporters in a packed Shantalla Community Centre, Galway City East’s Councillor Ogbu said her priorities were housing, mental health, accessible childcare, education and transport, including “properly looking into the ring road and active travel solutions for Galway.”
“Authenticity is the most important. I am going to be myself. I am going to be me,” the family resource and community worker said to chants of ‘Gaillimh Ogbu!’. “As a widow, single parent, foster carer, and community activist, I understand the struggles that so many families face. I have lived them. I know the weight of trying to balance work, family, and caring for loved ones, and I know the urgency of the issues that confront us every day.”
Proposing Ogbu as general election candidate, Councillor McNelis praised her work ethic in her busy constituency clinics in Ballybane. “We don’t need to talk about former TV stars, this is a real [political] rock star,” he said, in a presumed reference to Fianna Fáil’s celebrity candidate Gráinne Seoige.
Councillor McDonagh said he didn’t fear a winter election, noting he had canvassed a few since 1982. “When I first heard Helen [Ogbu] speak publicly I thought: there is Galway TD material, and I thought she might even make a great minister one day too.”
