Gilmore defends selection of Bacik in Dún Laoghaire

LABOUR leader Eamon Gilmore has defended the party’s selection of Ivana Bacik as his running mate in Dún Laoghaire, despite the fact she doesn’t even live in the constituency.

Senator Bacik ran unsuccessfully for the party both in Dublin in the 2004 European elections and in Dublin Central in last year’s Dáil by-election.

Earlier this year, Ms Bacik sought a nomination to run for Labour in Dublin South East — the constituency in which she lives — but lost at the selection convention to sitting TD Ruairí Quinn and Cllr Kevin Humphreys.

She is now being parachuted into Dún Laoghaire, where Labour will hope that Mr Gilmore’s surplus will see her elected.

Introducing a number of newly selected candidates yesterday, Mr Gilmore defended the decision to run Ms Bacik in a constituency in which she does not live.

“You don’t have to live in the constituency that you’re contesting, and in fact if you look at the Dublin constituencies, there are many (such) cases — including I think quite a number of the sitting members for the Dún Laoghaire constituency — who don’t live in the constituency.

“I’ve never made an issue of the fact that other TDs and other candidates don’t live in the constituency. It’s in the nature of Dublin politics… Living in the constituency isn’t as big an issue in Dublin as it is outside of Dublin.”

He played down the suggestion that Labour was being opportunistic by seeking to get Ms Bacik elected on his coat-tails.

“I think there has often been a tendency for leaders of political parties to find themselves with running mates who have little prospect of being elected. (But) in this case… we have selected the strongest possible team that can be selected for the Dún Laoghaire constituency and we’re doing that with a very clear objective of winning two seats.”

He pointed out that Ms Bacik had “polled very, very strongly” in Dún Laoghaire when running in the wider Dublin constituency in the 2004 European elections — a key factor influencing Labour’s decision.

Meanwhile, Mr Gilmore did not deny suggestions Labour had unsuccessfully approached former Clare hurling star, Davy Fitzgerald, to run for the party.

“We talk to a lot of people when we’re looking at the question of selecting a candidate,” he said. “Obviously I’m not going to get into discussing who we did talk to, who we didn’t talk to.”

Mr Gilmore said his party would run about 70 candidates in total in the 43 constituencies in the election.

The Labour leader said Fianna Fáil and the Greens were clearly seeking to delay the election in a bid to “drag out the life of this appalling Government for as long as possible”.