Sinn Féin has chosen its former press officer Joe Lynch to run with sitting TD Thomas Gould in a bid to take two seats in Cork North Central, which has gone from being a four-seat to a five-seat constituency.
Mr Lynch, from Ballincollig, was elected to Cork City Council in June’s local elections, and his selection is seen as key to the party’s hopes of taking a second seat, as Ballincollig, with an electorate of 20,000, was transferred from Cork North West to Cork North Central in the constituency revisions.
Mr Gould from Gurranebraher is expected to poll well in his native northside of the city, but the constituency has also been expanded to included Mallow in North Cork where some 14,000 votes are transferring from Cork East to Cork North Central to meet the numbers to make it a five-seater.
In a statement, Mr Lynch (35), a father of one, said he was proud to have been selected by the Sinn Féin membership, and he identified the new parts of the constituency as somewhere that needs Dáil representation.
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“Ballincollig is my hometown. I care about the village, the communities that make it up and its people passionately. We have been without a TD of our own for far too long, and with over ten years’ experience of working in Leinster House, I am up for the job and ready to hit the ground running.”
Mr Gould, a native of Knocknaheeny who lives in Gurranebraher in the heart of Cork’s northside, has been a public representative for 15 years. In 2020, he was elected to the Dáil for the first time.
He warmly welcomed Mr Lynch to the Sinn Féin ticket and expressed confidence the party would win two seats in the general election as he identified housing and a clean water supply as being two issues in particular that the party will seek to address.
“This general election is our best possible chance at real and radical change on the problems facing ordinary people – housing, healthcare, the need for additional Garda numbers, access to services for children with disabilities and the cost of living,” he said.
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