Toomevara native selected as candidate for Fianna Fáil

Toomevara native Ryan O’Meara has been selected by the membership of Fianna Fáil to contest the next local elections, in 2024, for Tipperary County Council in the Nenagh Electoral Area.

O' Meara, who is now living in Cloughjordan, has an undergraduate degree in Economics, Political Science and International Relations and a Masters of Common Law from UCD.

He works as Parliamentary Assistant to Deputy Jackie Cahill TD, and is based between Nenagh and Thurles in this position. O' Meara served as the Fianna Fáil Local Area Representative for the Nenagh LEA from March 2022 and is a former Fianna Fáil Ard Comhairle member.

He has a strong record of community activism and is currently a Director of Nenagh Credit Union.

He is also Chairperson of Nenagh Darkness Into Light. He is a founding member of the Nenagh Mental Health Awareness Community, a member of the management committee in the Thomas MacDonagh Museum, Cloughjordan, a committee member of the Nenagh Barracks Committee, the North Tipperary Agricultural Show, and the North Tipperary Community Rail Partnership.

Speaking after his slection O' Meara told this newspaper: “I am honoured to be selected by my fellow Fianna Fáil party members to stand for our organisation in the next local elections in the Nenagh LEA. I fully appreciate the trust the party is placing in me with this, and I am humbled by this honour.

“I fundamentally believe that a position is public life should be about service - service to your community, service to those who need to have their voices heard, service to the greater good, and service that requires personal sacrifice. A position in public life is not an honour that should be taken lightly, nor should it ever be taken for granted.”

REPUBLICAN BACKGROUND

O' Meara described himself as someone who came for a working-class, Republican background. “And I am proud of this. For me, Fianna Fáil has always been the party that has represented the ordinary person in this country and in our community. And although some would try to detract from this, and from Fianna Fáil’s history of building and shaping Ireland into the country it is today, I believe that the ordinary members of Fianna Fáil are still proudly rooted in this deep, historic position.

“Fianna Fáil is the party of peaceful, democratic Irish unification, of social and economic advancement for all, of social assistance for the less well-off. It is also pro-enterprise and pro-EU. It is the party of educational advancement regardless of one’s socio-economic background, and I believe this grounding in these fundamental principles is evidenced by the fact that the membership would select a 27-year-old, working-class person to be the party’s candidate.

“While others would claim that we have disconnected from these traditions and that others are now attempting to fill this space in Irish life, I believe that at our core, we still remain true to what has made the party what we have been for generations.

“I want to be representative of a new generation of public representatives for our society, holding these traditions dear, while also embracing a new, modern Ireland, and a better, more productive and genuine way of delivering in politics for the people.”

HOUSING

O' Meara said housing was the number one issue affecting his generation. “I am ‘generation rent’, the generation that has been locked out of the property market by failed housing policies for the last decade. I see many people I grew up with and went to school with, choosing to emigrate, with the primary reason for this being the inability to get their foot on the property ladder. I want to be the voice for those of us who are feeling the brunt of the housing crisis and to see meaningful, sustained and impactful change in this key area. Everyone should have access to their own home. We deserve home ownership being a viable ambition for us.

MENTAL HEALTH

O' Meara said he cared deeply about mental health and ensuring that those in need can have access to care in our local community.

He added: “Local issues, such as council services, roads infrastructure, public transport services, and public amenity access must be to the forefront of our public representatives’ minds and I would like to ensure that this is the case.

“Irish politics has changed fundamentally in recent years and a new generation of public servants need to be representative of this. We must do things differently in comparison with the past. We must do better, while also acknowledging all the good that has already been done.

“I believe that we need new, fresh ideas in public life. We need public representatives that truly represent the people who elects them.

“We deserve public representatives who will look to the future of our community, country and society with ambition for what we can collectively achieve, to build a modern, sustainable, inclusive Ireland for all,” O' Meara concluded.