Sinn Féin selects Toni Devine to run in the Carndonagh local electoral area

Sinn Féin has selected Toni Devine as the party’s second candidate in the Carndonagh local electoral area.

She will run alongside the party’s sitting councillor Albert Doherty. Her selection brings the number of candidates the party is running in Inishowen’s two local electoral areas to five. 

From the Kinnagoe area, she has worked on a wide range of community campaigns in Donegal and the north-west over the years. 

Speaking after her selection in the Greencastle Community Centre, she said the defective concrete block crisis has presented the local community sector with the challenge of providing appropriate support to families and children.

“As a member of the subgroup of the Inishowen Family Action Network, a new range of services and supports for families affected by defective concrete blocks have been developed. I will work to secure stable funding for this into the future. I will do all I can to fight for genuine 100% redress for our affected families and to bring more social and affordable housing to the area.

“I love living in Inishowen and enjoy the landscape and nature and so I have been active in environmental issues both locally and nationally. I know that farmers and fishermen are facing an uncertain future and I will work to support them.

“My approach in all my work has been to listen to people about what they need and to create solutions together. I will bring this way of working to my activity if I am privileged to be elected as a councillor for the people of North Inishowen.”

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Donegal Sinn Féin TD Pádraig Mac Lochlainn said he was delighted” that someone with the calibre of Toni Devine has been selected to be a Sinn Féin candidate”.

“Although Toni has lived for many years with her husband David in the community of Kinnagoe Bay and the glens above Greencastle and Carrowmena, she has a proud track record of community activism not just in Inishowen but also across the north-west.

“Her activism began in the civil rights movement from the late 1960s. She was the first coordinator of the Northern Ireland Women’s Aid Federation. Along with other local women she was one of the founders of Derry Well Woman in 1988. In her professional life she has been a teacher, lecturer and social worker.

“After the 2020 general election, people asked why we didn’t run enough candidates for change so we are not making that mistake again and we are running a record number of local election candidates across Donegal this time. 

“We are asking the people of Donegal to vote for our Sinn Féin candidates and send a clear message to the government that they have failed our people in Donegal on the big issues of housing, 100% redress for our defective block homeowners and across all of our health services.”