Aontú to run Mairead Tóibín in Dublin Bay South

Navan native Mairead Tóibín has been chosen as the Aontú party’s candidate in the Dublin Bay South by-election by the party's ard chomhairle.

Ms Tóibín, a sister of party founder, Meath West TD, Peadar Tóibín, has worked as a pharmacist in addiction and mental health services in Dublin Bay South for 15 years. She also worked as an inspector of the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland and says she has seen first-hand the many challenges that patients seeking treatment in the health service suffer. She has also witnessed the incredible pressure that the health service came under during the Covid Crisis.

"The Dublin Bay South by-election is in many ways a referendum on how this government mismanaged the Covid crisis," Ms Tóibín states. "The majority of people who died with Covid caught Covid in a hospital or a nursing home, both run or regulated by the Government. This is an incredible situation. The most vulnerable were the most exposed. We in Aontú were the first to call for a full investigation into the manner in which the government mismanaged this crisis. This mismanagement is not over. Many seriously ill patients with life threatening diseases are still not getting the treatment they need due to the fact that the health services are not fully open".

Mairéad Tóibín owned and managed two community pharmacy businesses, and says she has an acute understanding of the crisis many small business are going through.

"Instead of protecting the most vulnerable, Fianna Fail and Fine Gael produced the longest and most severe workplace restrictions in Europe. This hammered small businesses and workers. Aontú is the only party in the Dáil that stood up for the hardest hit sectors," she states.

Fine Gael has selected Cllr James Geoghegan to run for former Housing and Local Government minister Eoghan Murphy's seat, while Cllr Deirdre Conroy has been chosen by Fianna Fail. Over the weekend, the Green Party selected Cllr Claire Byrne over Dublin Lord Mayor, Hazel Chu, and Sinn Fein nominated Senator Lynn Boylan, a former MEP. Sarah Durcan is running for the Social Democrats, Brigid Purcell for People Before Profit, Senator Ivana Bacik for Labour, and Cllr Mannix Flynn is running as an independent candidate.