Sitting in an alcove in Buswells Hotel, Peadar Tóibín is buoyant. He is the only TD – and probably the only recognisable face – of Aontú, the party he established after walking out from Sinn Féin almost a decade ago on the abortion issue.
Now the party has a candidate standing in every constituency and has shown strongly in the opinion polls. If things go according to plan, Tóibín will have at least one colleague in the 34th Dáil.
“We’re targeting about 10 constituencies where we believe that the last seat is between a government TD and an Aontú candidate,” he said.
“And I do think we’ll be in competition for those. I’m not saying all of those will fall in our direction, but we’ll be in competition for seats in those and on a good day, a good number of them will come to us.”
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The party has zeroed in on three possible gains. The first, and most obvious, is Cavan-Monaghan where Cllr Sarah Reilly has been building up a very strong base and is a threat to Fianna Fáil TD, and former party colleague, Niamh Smyth.
The second is Wexford, where Jim Codd will be in the mix. In Dublin West, the party believes it has a real chance of Ellen Troy taking the last seat in this expanded five-seat constituency, where she will be in competition with Ruth Coppinger.
Aontú is also poised to reach the threshold of 2 per cent support nationally, which will allow it to qualify for State funding. It came tantalisingly close in 2020, getting 1.9 per cent.
“It is a minor miracle that we have managed to build a strong, cohesive organisation across the country, and have attracted decent people in terms of activists and candidates,” says Tóibín.
“I’ve learned from my previous political party that good organisation on the ground is really important, and I’ve spent half my time over the last five years building that up on the ground. Now we have about 60 cumainn with about 2,000 members. So that will help us with the ground war in this election.”
Aontú is a morally conservative party with anti-abortion views. It campaigned against the family referendum in March and also opposed the hate speech legislation that was originally proposed. It also opposes liberalisation of euthanasia laws.
He claims that Aontú's stance on both issues was a factor in both Fine Gael and Sinn Féin reorienting their policy directions on both.
Tóibín says the party has no red lines as such but will need any potential partners in government to take account of its approach.
“The immigration debate is an example of that. I know this is a very energised debate. I think it’s important to say that we’ve always come from the perspective that we’re opposed to ethno-nationalism.
“We have many migrants who are members of the party and we are a pluralist republican political party. Identities in Ireland are equal and should be respected. I think we need to understand a bit more that people have a right to be able to speak about who comes into the country or not. That’s an area of influence for ourselves.”
He is open to coalition with any party except for Fine Gael and the Greens.
On abortion he says Aontú will “oppose, obviously, deregulation of the abortion laws”.
He said the party would try to reduce the number of abortions taking place for economic reasons by introducing child benefits from the fourth month of pregnancy and trying to reduce the economic burden.
The main eye-catching proposal in its manifesto was Operation Shamrock, a cash-and-tax incentive to entice young Irish emigrants home to work here. It is not a red line but is a policy that would be readily accepted by putative coalition partners.
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