Paddy Diver 'sceptical' and fears 100% Redress candidate could split election votes

Prominent defective blocks campaigner Paddy Diver says he fears the 100% Redress Party putting a candidate in the General Election mix could ‘jeopardise’ hopes of an end-to-end scheme for affected homeowners.

His comments come in the wake of the 100% Redress Party announcing Charles Ward as a candidate for the forthcoming election - a date for which has yet to be firmed up.

Diver is openly supporting Sinn Féin, who he says can deliver an end-to-end scheme and he fears that the entry of the 100% Redress Party candidate will haemorrhage votes from Sinn Féin’s Padraig Mac Lochlainn and Independent TD Thomas Pringle, who he says has been a strong voice for homeowners in the Dail.

“I am very sceptical of this,” Diver told Donegal Live. “I am in the middle of the redress scheme myself and I know what it’s like for the goal to be end-to-end. Anything that gets in the way of that, I’m not a fan of.

“I don’t understand what the goal is. We have asked if we could get an input and have a meeting to see why they believe running a candidate would be a benefit. I believe that the only people who will benefit here are Fianna Fail and Fine Gael. There are two schemes from these parties and the two schemes that we see are a failure to the people, plain and simple.”

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Diver was a central figure in taking thousands of homeowners to Dublin for a major protest.

The Inishowen man believes a better tactic to employ would have been to pool resources to “ vigorously campaign against Fianna Fail and Fine Gael and bring in the other affected counties”.

“This is the biggest crisis and biggest mental health torture Donegal has ever seen,” he said.

“To me, this is just something that will split the vote. I have seen many a time where stunts are pulled to get headlines. Nothing sure, this will get headlines - but are headlines enough anymore?

“This is a serious situation. I and others have been asked many times about running, but there is no way on earth that I could run for the benefit of Paddy Diver if I thought it could jeopardise homeowners.

“I really don’t want to come across as begrudging against the candidate, but I do worry about the end goal of it all.  Maybe they, as a party, could come out and explain it to us.

“A lot of people out there will maybe see the badge and say ‘put that person in’, but people should sit back and think about the overall picture.”

Diver himself has previously been mooted as a possible General Election candidate. He concedes that he gave consideration to running for the County Council, but declined due to the work involved in the demolition of his own family home, which is blighted by defective concrete blocks.

He said: “I sat around a table and weighed it up. There is no way I could be involved in anything that jeopardises the end-to-end.

“Thomas and Padraig will be most affected and I couldn’t praise them enough. I’m sure this will be a stab in the back after everything they did - and this will split the vote.

“”I would ask that the homeowners not give up on end-to-end - that should be our ultimate goal and the only party I feel who can provide that end-to-end is Sinn Fein. I do believe that is the only hope we have of getting out of this nightmare.”