‘I have three small kids so I know what it is like to be the little man struggling’

“IT’S the economy, stupid.”

That’s pretty much the answer you get when asking people the biggest issue they are concerned with in the run-up to the general election.

But while many are focusing on jobs, banks and their pay cheques, there is a real feeling that people just want to get rid of Fianna Fáil, no matter what the next man’s policies are.

People are angry, very angry, and they are not afraid to say so.

Canvassing with Fine Gael’s Cork County Cllr Tom Barry, and now Cork East candidate, yesterday one thing became very clear: Fianna Fáil are personae non gratae on the doorsteps.

Fermoy, about a half an hour from Cork city, is losing its young people. There are no jobs, businesses are closing and men, women and former Fianna Fáil voters alike agree that a change is needed, for whatever good it will do.

Because the frustration is not just with Fianna Fáil, but a general sense that we are in this mess and there is nothing any politician can promise — or do — because there is no money.

So how will any government find the resources to get us out of the black economic hole we are in?

With all the zest and enthusiasm of a first-time runner in a general election, Mr Barry, from the village of Killavullen, believes he has the skills and business acumen to create jobs.

“Politicians talk about job creation but very few of them have ever created a job — bar their own. In this day and age it is essential that practical job creation is backed up,” he says.

“I run my own business, which I founded, and which has been running successfully for the past 15 years. I know what it is to fight the tide and try and create something. It is easy to be the critic on the fence but it is a lot more difficult to make it happen.”

A leading campaigner in the fight to keep Mallow Beet Factory open, Mr Barry proposes to create jobs by re-opening the factory, and was in Brussels last week talking about the possibility of doing so.

“Sugar quotas will end by 2015. The industry had, and has, the potential to create 4,000 jobs if you take the spin-offs it creates into consideration.”

Not only sugar, Mr Barry, a biochemist, believes it is time to revive the agricultural industry as a whole and use our natural resources to their full potential.

People are looking for new blood and creative ideas, and the mood on the doorstep is a positive one for the candidate, who is up against it in a constituency with four seats and 10 candidates, including Fine Gael’s David Stanton, Labour’s Sean Sherlock and Ned O’Keeffe’s son Kevin.

“I have three small kids so I know what it is like to be the little man struggling. I don’t come from a political dynasty, I am running this campaign from own pocket, I have the business head, the education, and I want to give people a different choice.”

Certainly more than ever before candidates like Cllr Barry have a real shot at a seat in Dáil Éireann.