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MARY FITZPATRICK HAS been selected as Fianna Fáil’s candidate for the European elections in Dublin.
Earlier today we reported that either Fitzpatrick, who is a councillor; Geraldine Feeney; or Tiernan Brady would be selected by the hundreds of Fianna Fáil members voting at the selection convention in Dublin this afternoon.
Fitzpatrick, who is a Dublin city councillor, leads the Fianna Fáil group on the council.
Cllr Fitzpatrick describe it as “an honour to have won the support of the ordinary members of the Fianna Fáil party”.
Dublin needs a strong and active voice in Europe to push its interests and those of our country. Europe is not the answer to all our problems, but it could and should be doing more to help create growth which brings decent jobs.
Fitzpatrick had strong words to say about the Fine Gael-Labour coalition, saying: “Our arrogant and complacent government has a policy of just waiting for things to turn up. I believe we need a more active voice in Europe and that is the role I want to play.”
She came to prominence in the 2007 general election after she missed out on a seat despite polling nearly twice as many first preference votes as fellow Fianna Fáil candidate Cyprian Brady.
Fitzpatrick made the following election video for the party’s voters, emphasising her experience:
(Mary Fitzpatrick/YouTube)
The party Fianna Fáil said that over 700 party members voted on who should be the candidate in the Dublin constituency in May’s elections to the European Parliament.
Today was the first time that the party’s members have all had a vote in selecting candidates for Europe.
Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin said at the convention: “With Mary as our candidate I believe we have a really strong chance of winning a seat in Dublin and electing someone who will be a first rate MEP.”
He noted that Fitzpatrick “has been an incredibly active and successful leader of our group on Dublin City Council” for the past four years.
“Time and again Mary has shown that she can work across different communities and will never step back when it comes to her principles,” he said.
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This is not new news. Employees and people in cork knew that this was coming down the line for the past 18mths. I know plenty that are planning on taking redundancy and are happy to do so as they are earning decent salaries, and many have been in the job a long time and are looking forward to nice fat redundancy cheques. Good luck to them I say.
So, not necessarily hard times you say, it might well be the end of hard times.
So , if as you say ”Employees and people in cork knew that this was coming down the line for the past 18mths.”… Why did the government not ”do ” something to prevent it ,or why was it not announced before the vote last Thursday ?
I will tell you why and that is the same reason Irish Rails job losses were not announce because the government knew it would have effected the way people would have subsequently voted. The same way they announced all the new jobs , which in fairnes will probably not come to anything til 2015.
If those people, in pfizer, get a good redundancy package I would take it too and run…
Susie, please don’t ask sensible questions. The Ffg/Labour auto-bots cannot process sensible questions. Their supreme leader is infallible.
Susie read the article. The patent on one of their main drugs is running out. They can’t afford to keep producing it against rivals who will make it on the cheap. What do you want the government to do exactly ?
Susie, Lipitor came off patent here. It is no longer viable for pfizer to manufacture it, as all the generics can do it now.
This brings the cost of a medicine down, albeit at the cost of those jobs.
Pharma is a huge industry in cork, especially in little island and ringaskiddy. Experienced pharmacutical workers are in demand down here. Those workers will get reducdancy packs, and shouldn’t have much difficulty picking up a new job in one of the many other tabletting plants nearby.
What do you think the govt should “do” in this situation? To me it looks like the timeline of normal pharma business.
Hopefully a new drug will be produced at the plant between now and next year and the jobs could be saved.
Good points Susie yet again.
Vote Yes for Jobs
And a no vote would have preserved the patents on drugs produced in Ireland? This news has absolutely nothing to do with any government or EU change to the business environment in Ireland.
Oh I know that – you see before I made up my mind on which way I was going to vote. Every single job announcement on this website was followed with the Vote yes for jobs when they had nothing to do with “any government or EU change to the business environment in Ireland”, so using the same illogical logic I say “Vote Yes for Jobs” now.
Terrible news…
While I voted no this has nothing to do with treaties just as a previous poster said the patents hav run out and it’s now an open market.
It may mean that with patents expiring the price will go down thus demand may rise in areas where they previously it was not bought.
No sign of Enda Kenny or Richard Bruton! I mean Enda was first to get his face in when a whole 40 new jobs were being announce a couple of weeks ago!
What can he do that’s beyond his power
Peter, according to your logic, its OK for Enda to do photo ops when jobs are announced, and its doubly OK for Enda to scurry away into some hole when Job losses are announced. Damn the FFg/Labour auto-bots are simply sickening. Its solidarity that the people want to see, not some moron who only shows up to get his Photo in the papers and news when job announcements are made, He is a lieing, obnoxious traitor, who wouldnt debate the referendum, but is happy to be seen anywhere that makes him look ‘good’.
Cal, local TD Simon Coveney has been out today to express his regret at the job losses.
The only thing this has to do with the treaty is the timing of the announcement, like with Dublin bus. Openness and transparency alright!
Good luck to all effected.
Generic = cheaper,so every cloud eh
This was always on the cards as the life cycle of Lipitor was coming to an end and as others have said it was known 18 months ago. It is also the reason why the pharma companies are looking towards biopharma as a solution to the problem of patent expiration due to the complexities of producing generic or bio-similar drugs even if the patent has finished.
One thing the health boards can do, is to make sure that the cheaper generic medicines, which will be prescribed, are manufactured in Ireland.
A sad day
Expect more of this, alot more. To all those in the HSE wishing to push down drug prices to ridiculous levels there will be consequences to your actions. Generic substitution and more importantly reference pricing at the dispensing end in no way guarantee that the generics the government pays for are actually manufactured here, probably the contrary in fact. This doesn’t even begin to address drug “shortages” which in actuality are simply manufacturers diverting supply to more profitable larger markets than Ireland.
have your say