EU campaign/on the airwaves: An Independent candidate in the European election in the South constituency has said that he is using his nightly show at an unlicensed radio station to campaign for election.
Mr Gerry Hannan said he had no need to erect campaign posters because he was able to address his potential voters on his show on RLO Radio.
Known formerly as Radio Limerick One, the station lost its licence in 1996 for "serious and repeated breaches of its broadcasting contract".
Mr Hannan said he was campaigning against the smoking ban, bin charges on the elderly and the National Car Test. He is also campaigning for the return of the station's broadcasting licence.
"I'm running an open campaign. I'm doing it publicly, on the airwaves," he said.
Mr Hannan's website says he is "sick and tired of politicians breaking promises and blaming it on Europe". It adds: "He is going to Europe to find the real reasons why the people of Munster are subject to foreign-owned radio monopolies."
Mr Hannan said he was particularly targeting the support of the outgoing Fianna Fáil MEP Mr Gerry Collins.
"We're going to see Gerry Collins suffer at the hands of Gerry Hannan," he said.
He said he was "absolutely determined to show the Government once and for all" that his campaign was "deadly serious". His campaign would demonstrate the power of radio.
Mr Hannan is well known in Limerick as the writer of three books in which he challenged the portrayal of the city in the work of the writers Frank McCourt and his brother Malachy. He is also the owner of a movie retail outlet in the city.
He said he conducts a three-hour phone-in show from 10 p.m., Monday to Friday, on RLO, and said he regularly speaks to 50 or 60 callers during a single programme.
The show is repeated twice every night between 1 a.m. and 7 a.m., which means his voice is on the air for nine hours every night.
