Boyd Barrett lashes "so called Independents" at PBP Galway West Bye-Election launch
People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett launched a stinging attack on “career politicians” and gene pool Independents at a Galway meeting this week.
Speaking at the campaign launch of the party's Galway West Bye-Election candidate, Denman Rooke, Deputy Boyd Barrett said that many “so-called Independent” candidates “were often little more than Fianna Fáil/Fine Gael candidates who couldn’t get elected on those party tickets and so were pretending to be something else”.
In what was described as a “roof-raising speech”, Deputy Boyd Barrett said what distinguishes Mr Rooke or any People Before Profit nominee from other candidates is that he is “an activist, not a career politician”.
The Dublin TD said that as a party in the tradition of James Connolly, People Before Profit are fighting for many of the same things that Connolly was including housing, trade union rights, cost-of-living, and “the right of every person to live a dignified life, with a roof over their heads and the security of knowing their government won’t send them off to die in wars”.
The speech was made Monday at Ol’55 bar off Eyre Square for Mr Rooke's Bye-election campaign launch.
Mr Rooke said his campaign implored Galwegians to “demand a Galway we can live in”, which illustrated his belief in a “politics of people and communities”.
He conceded that, as an activist, he is “not a politician” in the traditional sense; and he was not driven by ego or the desire for a paycheque, but by a burning commitment to people and communities.