Senator Margaret Cox is to stand as an independent candidate in the upcoming general election, she announced today.
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| Senator Margaret Cox |
The Galway senator resigned from the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party three weeks ago accusing her former party of letting down Galway over the last 10 years.
Speaking to ireland.comtoday Senator Cox said: "I felt that Galway hasn't been well-served in the last five even ten years with Fianna Fáil in Government and when we measure the projects that had been promised and not delivered in the context of a €3 billion underspend of funds in the BMW region I just couldn't sit back and let people re-prioritise those projects again.
"When I resigned from the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party it wasn't my intention to stand as an independent but it has been the strength of the reaction I have been getting from people on the streets over the last two-and-a-half weeks that confirmed that I couldn't walk away and let it go.
"I think there is a lot of frustration outside Dublin. If you get onto the road in Galway to drive to Dublin you don't hit dual-carriageway until you get to Tyrrellspass."
She said over the last five years in particular she had "tried within the confines of the FF party to make my point about hospitals, roads, Breastcheck in Galway and it hasn't worked."
She said her focus would be on Galway and did not rule out supporting a Fianna Fáil-led Government if elected in the summer.
"Anything that I can do if I can move it forward, whether that is in a Fianna Fáil Government, a Labour Party Government, a Fine Gael Government. It doesn't really matter. That's the great thing about being outside party politics, you can focus on the one thing, which is Galway," she said.
Ms Cox has her work cut out for her contesting the election in Galway West where five sitting TDs are again standing for election.
Ms Cox first entered politics in June 1995 when, following the death of her father Tom Cox, she was co-opted to Galway Corporation.
In August 1997 she was elected to the Seanad, and re-elected in August 2002. On April 4th last she resigned from the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party, but remained in the Seanad as an Independent Senator.
She has previously been Government spokeswoman on Social, Community and Family affairs in the 2002 Seanad and spokeswoman on Enterprise, Trade and Employment from 1997 until 2002.
