Sinn Féin in Louth has announced that North Louth Councillor Antóin Watters will run as a third candidate for the party in the constituency alongside incumbent Ruaíri Ó Murchú TD and Cllr Joanna Byrne from Drogheda.

“When I was asked by the Party to run as a candidate I didn’t hesitate” Cllr Watters said. “We must give people a clear choice between the status quo and a party that will deliver change. We must be bold, we must be brave, we must increase our seats if we are to form a government and I am honoured to play my part in that badly needed change.

 “It is incredible that successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Governments supported by their cohorts in the Labour Party and the Green Party have consistently and systematically been failing us as a State and get away with it. The people can’t take any more and the squandering and waste of public money is unforgivable: €635,000 for a bike shed, €1,000,000 for a security hut, the Children’s Hospital to name a few.

“The final straw for me was the allocation of €9,000,000 (9 million euro) in Budget 2025 for mobile phone pouches to keep students off their phones during school hours. They then insulted people’s intelligence by selling this waste as ‘positive well-being and mental health’ as the latest figures for those waiting for CAMHS shows 695 people in Louth of whom 115 have been waiting over 52 weeks. Why don’t we tell students to switch off their phones or keep them in their lockers and invest that €9 million in CAMHS?”

Cllr Watters who is a father of two young children said he “despaired for their future if things don’t change.

“I have three brothers and all of them have been forced to emigrate and I certainly don’t want to lose my own children to emigration so we need a progressive housing and planning policy to allow children born in rural North Louth to stay in their community if they so choose.

“Sinn Féin has that policy (Housing For All) which includes the building of 60,000 self-build rural homes (state-wide) accompanied by meaningful reform of planning laws to solve problems faced by those wanting to build on their own land in their own communities.

 “Rural areas have been ignored and left behind by successive Governments almost to the point of decimation. We had to beg and plead for adequate broadband, we have little or no public transport infrastructure and recently a report from the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (IFAC) detailed the staggering failure of Government to invest in infrastructure across the State. People living in Cooley are not surprised at this: we have lived with Governments’ indifference to us for decades. That’s why Sinn Fein has committed to a Rural Health Commission to deliver health-care, home care and disability services to areas such as Cooley, Faughart and surrounding areas.

“We deserve better and as a Councillor I have worked hard to deliver locally and now I am asking people to support me as I take the next step and go to the Dáil with Ruairí Ó Murchú and deliver on the progressive policies of Sinn Féin.

“I am angry at the empty promises of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Labour and the Greens. I am asking the electorate to also get angry and stand up and say ‘enough! No more!’ and vote for change. This election is a clear choice between Government parties that are standing over their abysmal record or a Sinn Féin government committed to delivering change.”