Tóibín targeting council seats after ‘successful’ NI election campaign

Aontú leader and Meath West TD, Peadar Tóibín said this week he was exhausted but very pleased at his party's performance in the Stormont election last week.

Aontú ran 12 candidates in 12 of the 18 constituencies in the election for the Northern Ireland Legislative Assembly.

Although polling just 1.5 per cent of the vote, Deputy Tóibín said it was an increase from the 1.1 per cent his party received in the Westminster elections in 2019.

“We are hoping to see further improvements and a significant number of council seats in next year's council elections in the north,” he said.

Deputy Tóibín pointed out that in the last few days of the campaign the nationalist vote had coalesced, to give the DUP a bloody nose,” “This was a significant dynamic in this election as people saw the opportunity of a Sinn Fein first minister.”

“We are seeing a steady rise in support for Aontú. This was by far our biggest campaign so far. Last week we were one percentage point higher than People Before Profit who have one sitting MLA and we were just under the Greens who had until now two sitting MLAs.

“It is a slow, but steady increase and this campaign has been a success. Our membership in the north has doubled in the last eight weeks and our organisation is now far stronger. “We called to many houses on our canvass where they hadn’t heard of Aontú so this was very much an introductory election.”

Aontú currently has two sitting councillors in Northern Ireland – Denise Mullen in Dungannon and Emmet Doyle in Foyle. Both were SDLP members who joined Aontú.

Here in the Republic, the party has three councillors, Deputy Tóibín's sister, Emer Tóibín in Navan, Sarah O'Reilly in Baileboro and Jim Codd in Wexford.

“We have 50 local area representatives in place across the country to build our profile and they are immersed in the bread and butter issues,

While leading an All-Ireland party is a tough job, Deputy Tóibín says that the growth of Aontú in both jurisdictions are complementary.

“We had hundred of people come up to the North from the republic for this election campaign.”

Deputy Tóibín said Aontú is left of centre economically and socially conservative.

“We are very strong on human rights and holding the establishment to account.”

As regards the result of the Stormont election, he said it was absolutely disgusting that one party (the DUP) can hold the whole system to ransom.

“We need reform that goes beyond the Good Friday Agreement so that nobody can hold up the work of government.

“We are looking for a new Ireland Forum to look at how we can build an all island economy, which would allow for transition toward Irish unity.

“Within five years the people should have the right to vote for full Irish unity. “The southern government cannot just it on their hands and not prepare for it,” he said.

Meanwhile, Sinn Féin TDs in Meath, Darren O'Rourke and Johnny Guirke, have welcomed the historic assembly election result this weekend which saw Sinn Féin returned as the largest party for the first time.

Deputy O'Rourke said: "The northern state was designed 101 years ago to have an in-built Unionist majority. That has been turned on its head. Following this election, Sinn Féin has secured the most votes, the most seats and the right to nominate the First Minister. That is truly historic.”

Deputy Guirke said: "It was a tremendous result. I want to pay particular credit to Sinéad Ennis and Cathy Mason in South Down.

“For the past number of months Sinn Féin activists have travelled to South Down to help with the campaign there.

“This continues a decades-long tradition of co-operation. Sinn Féin is a proud All-Ireland party. “The people of the North voted for real change. It is important that those who have received a mandate to govern, turn up and get on with that work."