Social Democrats deputy leader Cian O\u2019Callaghan has said voters are feeling \u201cfrustration\u201d that despite Ireland\u2019s wealth, the Government has failed to deliver adequate housing, healthcare, public transport, and renewable energy infrastructure.<\/p>\n
Speaking to Gript at the RDS count centre today during the Dublin Central by-election, O\u2019Callaghan said the Government would be making a mistake if it dismissed the result as an isolated protest vote.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of frustration there,\u201d O\u2019Callaghan said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn terms of healthcare, housing, affordable childcare, public transport, investment in renewable energy, a whole range of different things that we are falling behind as a country. We need to do much, much better on that. I think the government would be really well, you know, they really need to listen to people on that and not dismiss it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Dublin Bay North TD was responding to comments previously made by Fine Gael Minister James Lawless, who argued that governments \u201cusually don\u2019t win by-elections\u201d and that such results do not necessarily point to a wider political trend.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Callaghan said that if the coalition ignored the message from voters, it would reflect poorly on the Government.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, I think if the government don\u2019t listen to voters in the by-election and they dismiss the results, that\u2019s really, really poor,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey need to listen to people who are saying very, very clearly there\u2019s a lot of frustration there.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also rejected suggestions that the Social Democrats\u2019 message on housing, transport, and renewable energy differed little from the approach previously taken by the Green Party in government.<\/p>\n
Describing what he said were common concerns raised by voters on the doorstep, O\u2019Callaghan argued that many people felt Ireland\u2019s economic success was not reflected in daily life.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we\u2019re talking to people, they say, \u2018You know, we\u2019re a well-off country, but in terms of housing we don\u2019t feel well-off,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople having really high rents, not being able to afford to buy a home like they used to be able to in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also pointed to concerns surrounding healthcare and infrastructure.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn terms of being able to access healthcare, you know, seeing older relatives not getting the care that they need,\u201d O\u2019Callaghan continued.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn terms of, you know, public transport, we are decades behind similar similar countries.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Social Democrats deputy leader said there was growing frustration that the State had failed to match public expectations despite strong economic resources.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo there\u2019s a real frustration there that despite the resources that Ireland has, at a government level they haven\u2019t been planning and delivering the kind of resources that we need as a country,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I think that\u2019s an overwhelming message from these elections.\u201d<\/p>\n
The comments came as Social Democrats candidate Daniel Ennis was projected to win the Dublin Central by-election based on tallies at the RDS count centre today.<\/p>\n
This by-election and the parallel one in Galway West has been closely watched by political parties as a test of public sentiment, occuring a little over a year into the current Government term.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Social Democrats deputy leader Cian O\u2019Callaghan has said voters are feeling \u201cfrustration\u201d that despite Ireland\u2019s wealth, the Government…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":464441,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[14258,105162,24621,61,60,43,1650,184787],"class_list":["post-464440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ben-scallan","tag-council","tag-dail","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-seanad"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464440"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464440\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}