Presidential candidate Connolly vows to be a voice for communities on Donegal visit

Candidate for the Irish Presidential Election, Catherine Connolly,  has found her visit to Donegal very insightful. 

The Independent Galway West TD says she “enjoyed the campaign” on her two-day visit to Donegal, ahead of the upcoming presidential election, which is scheduled for October 24. 

“It has been wonderful, absolutely wonderful,” Ms Connolly told DonegalLive. 

“The schedule was busy, leaving the house at 6am yesterday to get the ferry to Arranmore, then taking in Gweedore, Milford, Buncrana, Malin Head, then Letterkenny, Ballybofey, Glenties, Ardara and Donegal Town today.”

While visiting, Ms Connolly met with the families affected by the Creeslough tragedy and homeowners affected by the defective blocks crisis. “I intend to be a voice for the people of Ireland in as much of inclusive a way as possible,” she said. “That is the way that I have always treated my role as a TD. 

“People have shown me their houses with the defective blocks, which was profoundly upsetting. I thought I was up to speed with it from my time in the Dáil, from my colleagues, former TD Thomas Pringle and current TD Charles Ward - but I wasn’t. Nobody could be up to speed without having actually seen it. 

“Having seen it and listened to it, it would seem to me we don’t just have defective concrete blocks, but also a defective understanding and we have a defective scheme.”

Before becoming a TD, Ms Connolly worked as a cleaner, a nurse’s aide, a teacher, a barrister and a clinical psychologist. As described in her bid, in political life, Ms Connolly is passionate about peace, Irish Neutrality, the Irish language, preventing climate change and listening to those who are silenced. 

“As a Galway-West TD, living in a bilingual city, we have a lot in common with the Gaeltacht areas in Donegal,” she said. “I will use my voice to encourage and enable people to use the Irish language. 

“I have always had an approach to my role as a TD through a human rights lens. I believe the government has a duty to provide services as a right. A home for our people, a home is the most basic ingredient of a republic, and we have a major housing crisis. As a TD, I have always spoken out on that. 

“In relation to people with disabilities, I have always spoken and looked through a lens of human rights. Indeed, when I was in the Centre for Independent Living [in Letterkenny] today, ‘nothing about us without us’ was a mantra on the wall. 

“ It's empowering and enabling to ensure that people with a disability, no matter what level that disability is, that they can live as independently as possible. So we can only learn from the centres for independent living.

“I would see my role as a president very much in compliance with the constitution, but as a voice for peace, as a voice for our neutrality in the most proactive way, as a voice that is not afraid to speak up in relation to the existential threat posed by climate change.” 

Ms Connolly has vowed to stand in support of the people of Palestine and be “a voice that calls out genocide, we cannot normalise violence.”

She said:  “We cannot normalise genocide, the consequence for Palestine is horrific, the consequences for humanity are also equally horrific, if we normalise genocide.”

Having spent two days travelling the length and breadth of the county, Ms Connolly feels more in touch with the issues affecting the people of Donegal. 

“I would like to be a voice for the community, so back to Donegal and all the other counties I have been in,” she said. “A voice for communities on the ground and the amount of work that they do, I would like to be a voice that recognises that work and also to recognise that they have identified the problems and the solutions and we need to see a country that recognises them and resources them.”

Ms Connolly served in local politics, having been elected four times as a city councillor and also having served as the Mayor of Galway from 2004 to 2005. In 2016, Ms Connolly was elected to Dáil Eireann, serving as a TD in the Galway West Constituency. 

Having been elected again in 2020, Ms Connolly then served as the first female Leas-Cheann Chomhairle of Dáil Éireann. 

Ms Connolly announced her candidacy on Friday, July 11, as the Dáil went into recess. The campaign began five days later and she has been out every day since. So far, the left-leaning TD has received support from the 100% Redress Party, Labour, People Before Profit, Social Democrats and other independent TDs.

Tonight, she will travel back to her native Galway before spending Saturday and Sunday campaigning across Cork.