Sinn Féin sets sights on Laois council gains with big team

Boosted by consistently high opinion poll ratings and a big 2020 General Election Sinn Féin has launched ambitious plans to win more seats on Laois County Council.

 Laois Sinn Féin said it held a “very successful” local election convention in Portlaoise Leisure Centre for the upcoming 2024 elections last Tuesday,  December 5. The party will run candidates in all three of the Laois  Municipal Districts with seven candidates having successfully gone through the Convention stage of the process. 

The Graiguecullen/ Portarlington LEA will see Graiguecullen man Aaron Kelly, a first-time candidate, running alongside the sitting Portarlington Cllr Aidan Mullins as the two confirmed Sinn Féin candidates in the district that stretches from Offaly to Carlow and along the border with Kildare. 

Two candidates have also been selected to run in the Portlaoise area where Cllr  Caroline Dwane Stanley is running again alongside first-time candidate, Maria McCormack. The area also takes in Abbeyleix and Ballinakill. 

The party is making a big push in the Borris-in-Ossory/ Mountmellick district.

Clonaslee native Lorna Garry is running again in a bid to secure a first-time seat in the region alongside new candidates Helen Campion from Rathdowney and Julie Maguire from Mountrath. 

The party also confirmed an intention to add further names to the ticket in the months ahead in a bid to what it said was to make “significant gains” at next year's local elections in June.

 The party's Director of Elections is  Mr Andrew Kelly.

"Everyone knows that we need political change right across the country and that change starts locally. 

“The Laois Sinn Féin team will run a record number of strong candidates in the upcoming local elections and our candidates look forward to representing our community and being part of a bigger and stronger team of Sinn Féin councillors that will ensure our council delivers on the issues that matter to people locally," said Mr Kelly.

The party did not perform well at the 2019 local elections in Laois and has since been consigned to a technical grouping of independent and Labour councillors. 

The party has been making relatively modest progress in winning seats in local politics in Laois since 2004 which Dep Stanley won a seat. Momentum was slowed with axing of town councils and the shrinking of county councils under Minister Phil Hogan.