Dublin SF aims to take European seat

Marylou McDonald, Alex Maskey and Daithi Doolan at the Dublin AGM

The Dublin Sinn Féin Cúige held a very successful AGM last Saturday. The meeting was well attended, with delegates from every cumann, and was characterised by an atmosphere of excitement about the forthcoming European and council election campaigns.

Alex Maskey, recently elected MLA for South Belfast, opened the meeting to thank Dublin party members for the help they had given in his election campaign. "It was thanks to you that we were able to take our campaign to streets where no one from Sinn Féin had ever been before," he said. "Our victory was a breakthrough, a major advance in that area and for the party as a whole."

Outgoing chair Daithí Doolan, a candidate strongly backed to win a council seat in the Ringsend area, reviewed Sinn Féin's political work in the city over the last year, on top of the contribution cumainn had made to the election campaigns in the North.

Larry O'Toole, one of Sinn Féin's four members of Dublin City Council, spoke about the threat to public housing in the city, where "Dublin Council wants out of Local Authority housing altogether". He spoke with respect of party member Chrissy Heffernan's fight and imprisonment over the Bin Charges, and underlined Sinn Féin's continuing support for the Oxigen workers, who went on strike for the right to join a union and to negotiate their working conditions.

But the thunder of the meeting was stolen by the Dublin EU Sinn Féin candidate, Mary Lou McDonald and by Martina Anderson, All-Ireland co-ordinator. They brought to the meeting the historic proportion of the task in hand — for Dublin to elect its first republican MEP.

Activists discussed the EU election campaign and its importance, led by a presentation by Maria Doherty, Dublin's EU election campaign organiser, and they left the AGM with a new officer board elected and all eager for the fray of battle to come in election campaigns ahead.