Mick Barry 'in a battle' to retain his Cork North Central seat

Cork North Central TD Mick Barry has said that he is “in a battle” to retain his seat in the upcoming general elections.

Mr Barry was first elected to the Dáil back in 2016 on the seventh count, the second candidate to reach the quota. He was the only outgoing TD to keep his seat in 2020, but had to fight harder to hold on to the seat before eventually getting elected on the 14th count.

He got the fifth-highest amount of first-preference votes, 291 behind Independent Ken O’Flynn, but pulled ahead when he got almost 1,500 transfers from the surplus of Sinn Féin’s Thomas Gould, who topped the poll, and almost 2,000 from the Green Party’s Oliver Moran, who was the last candidate eliminated.

Mr O’Flynn finished fifth, but is running again this year as a member of Independent Ireland and could take a seat after topping the poll in the recent local elections.

The addition of a fifth seat brings the inclusion of Ballincollig and Mallow in the constituency, a move which may hurt Mr Barry’s chances, as Labour runs Mallow councillor Eoghan Kenny and Fine Gael and Sinn Féin run Ballincollig councillors Garret Kelleher and Joe Lynch, who are expected to pick up seats in these areas, which could translate to transfers for their running mates.

Mr Barry told The Echo: “It’s clear in Cork North Central now, that seats will be taken by the three big parties and by an Independent, and that I am in a battle for the final seat.

“All I’ll say about that is — never underestimate a veteran campaigner well used to fighting the fight to the very end.”

He added that his work as a TD was far from complete, saying: “Cork has never seen such a disimprovement in the water supply as the disimprovement we’ve seen in the last five years under Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, and the Green Party.

“Their policy of privatisation has played a huge role in this disimprovement, and needs to be reversed. There needs to be a €500m investment in replacing old pipes in the water network and I intend to keep fighting for that.”