The Labour Party has launched its election campaign ahead of the local, European Parliament and Limerick mayoral elections.
The party is putting 108 candidates forward in the local elections – looking to make gains on the 54 councillors it currently has.
Conor Sheehan, who is a Labour party councillor in Co Limerick, hopes to be the city’s first directly elected mayor.
There are three Labour candidates running for the European Parliament elections: Aodhán Ó Ríordáin in Dublin, Fergal Landy in Midlands North West while Niamh Hourigan is running in the South constituency.
At the party launch at the Ashling Hotel in Dublin city centre, party leader Ivana Bacik said she was “delighted” and “proud” to put forward what she described as “great candidates”.
Ms Bacik said the party is putting forward a “strong Labour vision” on issues that she says are affecting communities including housing, climate, care and workers’ rights.
She said people across the country “are crying out for really positive change”.
The Labour Party, she said, offers sustainable change to tackle the cost of living and the housing crisis and it offers constructive solutions to address the challenges that communities face.
“We are really proud of our great councillors who work so hard in our communities and we want to build on the numbers we currently have,” she said.
“We want to ensure that our councillors will continue to deliver at local authority level on parks, on pitches, on benches and bins, on road surfacing and cycle ways and all of the things that we are working on in local communities,” she added.
Ms Bacik and her party are also focused on having a strong Labour voice in Brussels.
The party has not had an MEP since the 2009 – 2014 European Parliament term.
Ms Bacik said there is currently no Irish MEP from the second biggest group in the European Parliament, the Social and the Democratic group, and that she wants to change that to ensure there is a strong Labour vision also being expressed at European level.
Ms Bacik said she was proud of the candidates and proud to launch today.
Voting will take place on Friday 7 June in both the European Parliament and local elections.
