“I can’t offer you a cup of tea ... We have no water,” Ballinamore resident Alice Shiels tells Green Party candidates on the election trail in Co Leitrim.
Local election hopeful Adam Ó Ceallaigh was joined by Senator Pauline O’Reilly, the Green Party candidate in the Midlands-North West constituency in the European Parliament election, for a canvass in the town on a Wednesday afternoon.
Shiels says the temporary water cut was unexpected and the situation is an “absolute disgrace”.
“I moved into this estate in 1950 and we were never without water and in 2024 we have no water.”
Ó Ceallaigh says he has already been in touch with Leitrim County Council about similar issues elsewhere.
He has Shiels’ vote in the bag despite her open disdain for his party and he encourages her to vote for O’Reilly as well.
“I don’t agree with the Green Party – it’s individuals I agree with,” she says.
Shiels has concerns about the party’s position on the turf she uses to heat her home.
“That man in Dublin now doesn’t do you any favours, I’m sorry – I’m being honest about it,” she adds in reference to Green Party leader Eamon Ryan.
O’Reilly highlights how “last time we got as many people elected outside Dublin as inside Dublin”.
Shiels says she does not like anything the Greens stand for “but I like that young man ... he knows what he’s talking about”.
The Green Party has never been massively popular in rural Ireland. The party won 2.2 per cent of the vote in Leitrim in the 2019 local elections, a county that has traditionally returned Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael councillors en masse.
Nonetheless, Ó Ceallaigh (22) believes he can overcome the odds, arguing that he is bringing a young and “progressive” voice to local politics.
Asked whether Sinn Féin, which is running three candidates in the Ballinamore local electoral area, including Róisín Kenny, sister of TD Martin Kenny, might pose a threat to his chances, Ó Ceallaigh says he does not believe so.
Politics “needs to be representative of the people” on the ground and he did not “see anybody on the council that represents me”, he says.
O’Reilly, meanwhile, faces an uphill battle in Midlands-North West. A recent Irish Times/Ipsos B & poll put her support at 2 per cent, trailing the likes of Independent MEP Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan (11 per cent), Fine Gael MEP Maria Walsh (10 per cent) and Fianna Fáil TD Barry Cowen (10 per cent).
The Senator says this election is different from the 2019 European campaign, as “now people see Green politics is about concrete action”. She cites measures such as the increase in the number of Local Link bus routes.
O’Reilly believes she “absolutely” has a path to election, saying the latter stages of the campaign will be “crucial” and national polls do not take local support bases such as hers in Galway into account.
The Greens have long been portrayed as a “bogeyman” by farmers and some who live in rural areas.
Do rural voters really hate the Greens?
Asked how she responds to farmers who believe the party’s environmental policies could destroy their livelihoods, O’Reilly says: “I’m just honest with people that ironically it’s the Green Party who has put the most money back in farmers’ pockets.”
She gives the examples of increased payments for forestry and supports for organic farming.
“Farmers are not anti-environment. Farmers just haven’t been supported to do what they want to do and what they love doing,” she says.
In Ballinamore, many of the residents encountered by the Green Party candidates are polite but non-committal in terms of offering support.
[ European candidates on centre-left test the temperature on Dublin’s doorstepsOpens in new window ]
The town was the scene of protests in 2019 over plans to move asylum seekers there, though the accommodation centre has since opened. Ó Ceallaigh, who is involved in the “Leitrim for All” group, says the people living in the centre have become involved in the town and have been “welcomed”.
During the canvass one resident, Patrick McPolin, who indicated he supports Ó Ceallaigh, raised the issue of immigration and asylum seekers living in tents along the Grand Canal in Dublin, saying: “I don’t know what the answer is.”
“Most of the people who have come into Ballinamore have been integrated reasonably well,” he adds.
McPolin raises concern at people arriving in Ireland without passports.
“You just can’t let loads of people from very dangerous places without having some idea of who they are ... Once you know who they are, that’s not a problem because there aren’t enough people in Ireland,” he says.
O’Reilly says the international protection application process takes “too long now and it really needs to be shortened for people to have confidence”.
A number of candidates with anti-immigrant platforms are running in the Midlands-North West constituency.
O’Reilly says the issue has featured in the campaign “less than people would imagine”, adding that there are “a small number of people who do make quite a lot of noise”.
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