Bernard Durkan paraphrases Ronald Reagan’s zinger line from his 1984 re-election bid when the 73-year-old American politician – at that point the oldest ever US president – was running against a younger candidate.
Durkan (79) laughs and says of his rivals in Kildare North: “I’m not going to comment on anybody’s inexperience if they don’t comment on my age.”
The Fine Gael politician was first elected to the Dáil in 1981 and – aside from a number of months in 1982 – has held the seat ever since.
“I always said that I would continue until the people told me to stop,” he tells The Irish Times. “As far as I was concerned it was never a career, it was a vocation to try to help people whoever they are.”
Has he experienced any ageism on the campaign trail?
“No, people have often said to me – ‘you’re mad, why do you do it?’ and within the next breath ‘it’s because you like it’.
“I actually do,” he says. “What’s the alternative? Sit down, look at television, get your slippers. That gets boring, I’m not a person who likes inactivity.”
The average age at the start of the last Dáil was 48½.
There are candidates running in this week’s election all over the country that are a fair bit younger, and some who are somewhat older.
Coincidently, Fine Gael’s youngest candidate, Cllr Evie Sammon (31) is one of Durkan’s two running mates in Kildare North.
She was first elected to the local authority aged 25 and says her experience as a younger politician has been “generally positive”.
Sammon adds: “People love seeing young people run.”
She said there “hasn’t been too much negativity around my age since being elected to the council.
“Rather than the general public maybe people that you work with think you’re not going to be as vocal or maybe as informed on issues but they soon realise that you are and that younger people are well able to speak up.”
Sammon meanwhile is a renter “looking to use the first-time buyers’ scheme, hopefully soon, to get on the property ladder myself”.
She said a focus of her political career has been helping to deliver land for housing through the various development plans she worked on at Kildare County Council.
People Before Profit’s Galway West candidate, 22-year-old art student Maisie McMaster, says she has not experienced any direct ageism whilst campaigning.
She says: “I can definitely imagine that there is that kind of sentiment out there, that people would look at me and say ‘sure what does she know?’”
However, she points to her own life experience including “going through college and the struggle of keeping yourself afloat”. “I think having a voice and the knowledge of that directly is important.”
McMaster says housing is the main issue she is campaigning on including the need for “more public houses on public land” and reinstating the eviction ban. The issue is, she says, brought up by young people but also their parents.
A person must be 21 years old before they can run for the Dáil.
Independent Ireland’s Louth candidate Ryan McKeown, in his words, “just made the cut” after he reached the all-important age last month.
Like McMaster, he ran unsuccessfully in the local elections in June. He says he contacted the new party of Independents after coming across its social media posts while he was considering emigrating to Australia like one of his friends.
He liked Independent Ireland’s policies and dismisses both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael as options for him to join as a young person “locked out of the housing market”.
As someone who grew up with ADHD (Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) and experienced delays in getting State supports, one of McKeown’s main campaign platforms is improving mental health services.
He insists the majority of feedback he has been getting on the doors is “really good”. He tells people: “I understand I’m young – I get that. But I would not have put my name on the ballot paper if I didn’t think I had the ability to do the job because I have more respect for the people of Louth than that.”
He tells them: “Give me one chance. If I’m no good get rid of me”.
Housing: what is on offer in this election campaign?
Elsewhere, one of Fianna Fáil’s Donegal candidates, former TD and MEP Pat ‘The Cope’ Gallagher (76), is back on the campaign trail. Asked if he has experienced any ageism in the course of the race he replied: “none whatsoever”.
Gallagher has been walking more than five kilometres every day for almost five years or as he describes it “the equivalent of 240 marathons, 3½ times around the Wild Atlantic Way or from Donegal to Boston and back”.
He says: “I’m as fit as I was when I ran for Europe 30 years ago.”
What is the motivation for getting back into frontline politics after losing his Dáil seat in 2020?
“I have devoted all my life to politics,” he says and “I’m as enthusiastic as I was when I first stood many years ago.”
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