'The people have been denied proper representation for two years': Calls for Cork by-election following Murphy resignation 

THE Sinn Féin candidate in the recent Cork North Central by-election has called for another by-election to be held to fill Dara Murphy’s vacant Dáil seat.

Cllr Thomas Gould has said the people of the constituency deserve proper representation in the Dáil and has labelled as “appalling” the timing of Mr Murphy’s resignation.

“The people of Cork North Central have been denied proper representation in the Dáil for two years; with Dara Murphy effectively abandoning his post and serving as an absentee TD. Now that he has formally resigned his seat, a by-election to fill his vacant seat must be held.

“I feel really disappointed that I should be a TD now for Cork North Central. It’s really disgraceful the way Dara and Fine Gael have behaved because they knew this. For the people of Cork North Central they’re short a TD now — they’ve only three TDs working,” he continued.

“Dara knew there was a by-election coming up. Fine Gael knew there was a by-election coming up and that Dara was absent without leave. The Government’s behaviour is just appalling especially when they had a by-election called and it would have cost nothing extra to elect two TDs instead of one. They made a strategic decision for Dara to resign the first day of the Dáil after the by-election. It just stinks of cronyism. It’s horrible what they’ve done. It’s completely appalling.”

He says Fine Gael abandoned the area while Fianna Fáil haven’t done any better “with Billy Kelleher running off to Europe as well”.