Sinn Féin MP canvasses Mullingar in European Election campaign

A Sinn Féin MP was in Mullingar last week canvassing for her campaign to become an MEP for the Midlands North West constituency in June’s European Elections.

Michelle Gildernew is the current MP for Fermanagh-South Tyrone.

She was an MLA in the first-ever Northern Ireland Assembly in 1998 and served as Northern Ireland’s agriculture minister between 2007 and 2011.

Ms Gildernew, who was joined on the campaign trail in Mullingar by local Sinn Féin candidates Damien Rooney and Julie McCourt, said there was a “strong desire for change” at the houses she called to.

“One woman I spoke to earlier said, ‘I’m not sure if it’s working out this time, we voted Sinn Féin last time and Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil got together to keep yee out,’” she said.

“Those two parties who have been political opponents for 100 years have come together to keep us out, but this time we’re running enough candidates to go into Government.

“I told her that every vote counts, a single vote matters and, if you stay at home, you’re giving Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael what they want.”

Ms Gildernew said she understands too well the value of a single vote, being the only ever MP to win three elections by a margin of less than 100 votes.

“In 2001 I ran for the Westminster seat and nobody was expecting us to win it, but we scraped by with 53 votes and won it 20 years after Bobby Sands had won the same seat,” she said.

“Since then, I’ve won it twice more with less than 100 votes, I don’t know how many recounts I’ve been involved in over the years – but we make elections exciting.

“My smallest majority was in 2010 when we won a seat by four votes, there were three recounts and then it went to an electoral court.”

The MEP candidate said she’s hoping to take her experience as agriculture minister in the north to the European Parliament.

“I was asked to run by Matt Carthy [TD] last year and he said if I was elected, ‘We’re putting you on the agriculture panel,’” she said.

“That’s why I said yes - I would be a strong voice for farmers in Europe - and that’s my attraction to this.

“There are a lot of issues to solve; the common agriculture policy is going to be renegotiated during this term.

“I have a track record in negotiating with EU institutions, I’ve worked at that level, and I will be a strong voice for farming communities and families in Midlands North West.”

Ms Gildernew said the people of Northern Ireland were taken from the EU “against their wishes”.

"The majority of people in the north voted to remain but we were taken out and we are not happy about that,” she said.

“All of Ireland is suffering as a result of Brexit, not just the north, so we need strong voices to stand up for Ireland in Europe and that’s not just on rural issues, but on issues around Ireland’s neutrality.”

She said she’d like to use her office to lobby for peace in the world.

“Ireland has had 800 years of conflict and I think we’ve seen enough of it,” said Ms Gildernew.

“If you look at what’s happening in Ukraine and Gaza; we need to make peace, not war and we need to use our office to bring peace to war-torn regions.

“There’s going to be a bit of a shift to the right and we need to ensure we’re not conceding things like taxation and other powers to Europe too.”

Michelle Gildernew, when elected as an MP in 2001, was the second woman ever to do so for Sinn Féin at the time – after Countess Markievicz achieved the same feat in 1918.

The European Elections will be taking place on June 7, alongside the local elections.