Eoghan Murphy quits politics
...and it looks like a ticket dominated by women
ALL three Government parties will contest the by-election in Dublin Bay South after Fine Gael TD Eoghan Murphy resigned his seat.
The former housing minister announced his departure yesterday in a letter to party colleagues, and will seek a role in international affairs.
Mr Murphy was first elected as a local councillor in 2009 before moving to the Dáil in 2011, where he served as junior finance minister under then taoiseach Enda Kenny, before being promoted to Cabinet under Leo Varadkar.
He lost his seat at Cabinet in 2020 following the formation of the Coalition Government.
In a letter to Fine Gael members yesterday morning, Mr Murphy said it was ‘a personal decision’ to resign his seat.
He said: ‘Leaving frontline politics is not something that I am doing without having considered the matter fully.
‘In my late 20s, I worked in the UN system before I returned to Ireland to get involved alongside many other people looking to play their part in the national recovery at the time. Now, after 12 years of service and having reflected upon things, I have made the decision to return to international affairs.’
‘It’s a referendum on housing policy’
Both Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Tánaiste Leo Varadkar steadfastly insisted their parties will win what Mr Martin branded an ‘exciting by-election’ at some stage over the next six months.
The Fianna Fáil leader, the Fine Gael leader and the deputy leader of the Green Party, Catherine Martin, all indicated yesterday that they would be putting candidates forward to fill the empty seat.
And the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste were both confident that their parties would win the coveted seat.
‘We will be contesting the byelection,’ Mr Martin said.
‘I’m not saying we’re not going to win this one; we are.’
The Tánaiste also appeared to have his eyes on the prize as he predicted Fine Gael would secure the seat. ‘We will contest it with a view of winning it,’ he said.
Green Party deputy leader Catherine Martin, meanwhile, said that she ‘presumes’ the Green Party will contest the election, but the matter will be discussed by the party in due course.
The Tourism Minister was one of the Green Party members who backed Dublin Lord Mayor Hazel Chu’s Independent Seanad run.
While she told reporters yesterday that it would be inappropriate for her to back a candidate ahead of a selection convention, she added that she would like to see a woman assume the role. ‘I would like to see a woman elected in Dublin Bay South,’ she explained. Mr Varadkar, meanwhile, also would not say if he would be calling for Kate O’Connell to contest the election.
Following the news that the Tánaiste was the subject of a Garda investigation after he sent a confidential contract to a rival GP group, Ms O’Connell said Mr Varadkar could be ‘in trouble’.
Significantly the Fine Gael councillor in Dublin Bay South, James Geoghegan, a close ally of Mr Murphy wished the departing Murphy well, noting that ‘at a personal level, Eoghan Murphy has always been an enormous support to me’.
Senator Ivana Bacik, the expected Labour candidate, said: ‘The constituency needs a woman’s voice and I hope to provide it.’
Sinn Féin and Labour have both claimed the surprise by-election in Dublin Bay South will be a referendum on the Government’s performance on housing.
Sinn Féin finance spokesperson Pearse Doherty said housing will be the key issue and that Sinn Féin will be fighting to win the upcoming Dublin Bay South by-election.
Mr Doherty said: ‘The by-election in Dublin Bay South will be about housing and it will be about rents. This is a constituency where the failures of Fine Gael in govern
ment and former TD Eoghan Murphy when he was minister of housing are stark and plain to see.’
Mr Doherty added: ‘Nowhere is the crisis in our overpriced rental sector, or the fact that a whole generation are locked out of home ownership, more evident than in Dublin Bay South.’
And he said: ‘This will be a clear choice between endorsing the Government’s record on housing by supporting a candidate from one of the three Government parties or saying we can do so much better.’
We can, he said, ‘reduce rents and we can build homes – that is the choice that the people of Dublin Bay South will make’.
The former constituency TD Kevin Humphreys and Labour national organiser also claimed that: ‘This election will be a referendum on housing.’
It is, he said: ‘A huge issue in the constituency in so many different forms. The Government is failing on social housing and it is failing on affordable housing.’