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Meet the working class TD named Gino who'll get the bus to Leinster House today

Gino Kenny is one of the more interesting deputies elected to the 32nd Dáil.

27/2/2016. General Election 2016 - Counting of Vot Gino Kenny celebrating his election last month. RollingNews.ie RollingNews.ie

A HOST OF new TDs will take their seats in the 32nd Dáil today and among them will be Gino Kenny, the new Anti Austerity Alliance-People Before Profit deputy for Dublin Mid-West.

He will arrive at Leinster House this morning having taken the 151 bus from his native Neilstown in Clondalkin. On other days he said he’ll cycle the 11 kilometres into town. No car and absolutely no fuss.

He describes himself as a “normal working person” who represents working class people, and that’s very much apparent from his demeanour. In some ways, Kenny comes across as a reluctant TD. He doesn’t like to use the word politician, preferring to describe himself as a “shop steward on a factory floor”.

As for wearing a suit? No chance. He owns one, but it’s only for weddings.

TheJournal.ie / YouTube

“I’m not against suits. For myself, I don’t feel comfortable in suits, I have to say,” the soft-spoken former community care worker told TheJournal.ie this week.

“Personally I just wear… look respectable. I think sometimes the stereotype about politicians is a suit and a big car and that’s not me.

I cycle and walk and I get the bus in. I suppose, for want of a better word, I’m just a normal working person that wants to represent working people and that’s what I want.

Kenny was elected in Dublin Mid-West after years of campaigning and working on the ground. He previously ran unsuccessfully for People Before Profit in the 2007 and 2011 general elections.

But this time it was different. He took the last of four seats with just under 8,000 votes on the 12th count last month. The huge swathe of anger over water charges and other issues, particularly housing according to Kenny, saw the Labour vote “obliterated” and AAA-PBP capitalised.

Kenny, who was christened Eugene, is the first TD for Neilstown, an area he’s spent most of his life in.

Nicky Ryan / TheJournal.ie

“I was born in 1972. I was raised in Islandbridge flats and then we moved from Islandbridge flats in 1979 to Neilstown. So I’ve been living there ever since, in Clondalkin,” he said.

“In the 1980s, when a lot of people were put out to Neilstown, there was very little infrastructure.

Then it became bigger and bigger and there was certain problems that materialised because there was nothing to do for young people. Then drugs kind of took hold, heroin took hold and it caused absolute chaos.

Kenny said his own family has not been immune to the heroin epidemic. He has lost friends to the drug, while others have moved out of the area, but Neilstown, he added, is a “much better place to live in and work in these days”.

It’s not without its problems though, including the lack of social housing with many families forced to live in hotels or worse. Kenny has identified it as his number one priority in the new Dáil.

“There are people living in hotels for over a year-and-a-half, people on the waiting list for the last ten years,” he said.

gino 1

“I mean before if you [had to be] socially housed it was an average of about seven years wait, no more than that. Now it could be anything between 10 to 12 years.

It’s a crisis beyond the crisis, it should be declared a national emergency.

Kenny said the government is too focussed on getting the private market to build houses when there needs to be a “massive build of social houses” over the next five years.

But what can one of six AAA-PBP TDs in the new Dáil do about it given they’ll be in opposition? Kenny drew comparisons with the water charges movement.

“Six activists in the Dáil is one thing but it’s mobilising as many different people on different issues – from water charges to property tax, the housing issue – on to the streets.

To us, that’s what counts. People power is ultimately gonna change things and mould things in society.

27/2/2016. General Election 2016 - Counting of Vot RollingNews.ie RollingNews.ie

Kenny said he is humbled by the position he is in after three attempts at winning election to the Dáil.

Now he will try to give the people who elected him the best representation he can. His quiet and reserved disposition leads you to believe he will not be as bombastic as his PBP colleague Richard Boyd-Barrett or as divisive as AAA’s Paul Murphy.

“People need a voice politically and I think I’m very humbled and very honoured to be in that position, to represent working people of the constituency, not only the constituency but nationally,” he said.

That’s what drives me, all the injustices that go on in Ireland. Hopefully we can, politically, try to address them.

Read: What exactly happens when the new Dáil sits today?

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113 Comments
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    Mute Margaret Kane
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    Oct 16th 2019, 9:52 PM

    Shameful waste of tax payers money this government has to go

    853
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    Mute GooseSkipGoose
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    Oct 16th 2019, 9:47 PM

    Deplorable. No wonder the country’s policies are backwards

    628
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    Mute The long walk home☘️
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    Oct 16th 2019, 10:10 PM

    @GooseSkipGoose: Asylum doesn’t work, you suppose to seek asylum in the first safe country you reach, However most transit through EU countries to get here.

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    Mute Mick McGuinness
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    Oct 16th 2019, 10:25 PM

    @The long walk home☘️: Bertie Ahern brought that in in the Dublin Treaty, people didn’t realise then how things would work out. It’s definitely a no go under the current climate for the Country’s around the Mediterranean that’s why it’s happening.

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    Mute Mark Campbell
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    Oct 16th 2019, 10:01 PM

    country is a joke look after your own

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    Mute GrahamMManning
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    Oct 16th 2019, 10:04 PM

    @Mark Campbell: so we shouldn’t accept any asylum seekers? Any immigrants of any kind?

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    Mute Gavin Conran
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    Oct 16th 2019, 10:30 PM

    @GrahamMManning: and of course require our own to return from all over the world to settle back here in Ireland where we can take good care of them.

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    Mute GrahamMManning
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    Oct 16th 2019, 10:34 PM

    @Gavin Conran: perhaps even their descendants?

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    Mute ThatLJD
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    Oct 16th 2019, 9:49 PM

    State needs to sort itself out, put more resources to dealing with these cases. Provide some timely interventions to either send these people home or to provide them with asylum here and help integrate them. Throwing money away in this, in a week, how much could be saved on dealing with cases! Or maybe I should buy a guest house and get pally with Chazza and his pals in the dept!

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    Mute Eamonn Roche
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    Oct 16th 2019, 10:07 PM

    @ThatLJD: give em a pps number and a job let them live like everyone else and pay their way

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    Mute Lionheart1
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    Oct 16th 2019, 10:10 PM

    @Eamonn Roche: Great but where will they live?

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    Mute John R
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    Oct 16th 2019, 10:22 PM

    @Eamonn Roche: So do away with our visa system entirely and allow anyone who wants to come to Ireland to do so as long as they work? The only legal basis for asylum seekers to be in Ireland is for the determination of their claim for asylum. The top two claimants are two non-E.U. European states, Albania and Georgia. They have a 99% and 97% rejection rate respectively. The next two claimants are Zimbabwe and Nigeria with an 82% and 94% rejection rates. They should all be fast tracked.

    The DP system is the best system to accommodate asylum seekers providing the initial claims are processed within a six to nine month time scale. It should be much faster than that for the top four claimant counties. The issues are decision times, asylum shopping and economic migrants making bogus claims.

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    Mute Fran O'Keeffe
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    Oct 16th 2019, 9:55 PM

    So wrong in so many ways

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    Mute United Ireland
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    Oct 16th 2019, 9:58 PM

    Ya while our own are dying on the streets daily young homeless family’s kids aswell living in tents if there lucky while Leo & co give themselves a pay rise. charity stops at home im afraid this country is F#ked and no im not racist snowflakes !!

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    Mute GrahamMManning
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    Oct 16th 2019, 10:09 PM

    @United Ireland: ignoring the spelling and sentence structure. No our own aren’t “dying on the streets daily”, no one is lucky to live in a tent, if charity stopped at home no one would help the people you’re describing, in some areas fair nuff we are f’ed and if you have to deny being something guess what you might be?

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    Mute Dom
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    Oct 16th 2019, 10:17 PM

    @GrahamMManning: Im denying that Im blind, does that mean I might be blind? See how your argument about racism falls short? I never understood that logic. Denying doesnt equate to being.

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    Mute GrahamMManning
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    Oct 16th 2019, 10:23 PM

    @Dom: it means you might be. Doesn’t mean you are. It’d be an odd thing to bring up if you weren’t though, wouldn’t it?

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    Mute Dom
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    Oct 16th 2019, 10:31 PM

    @GrahamMManning: I suppose that argument can be applied to anything. Anything said out of context can be odd. It would certainly be unnatural for me to bring it up but in this case, it fits the context. Just like United Ireland’s comment fits the context. Its also relevant and justified given how people can get so quickly bent out of shape. Anyway, just my input, it all comes down to maybes and woulds and coulds.

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    Mute GrahamMManning
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    Oct 16th 2019, 10:36 PM

    @Dom: yup fair nuff. Does seem to be mentioned more often than not by posters whose comments could be interpreted as racist and rarely by those whose comments couldn’t?

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    Mute Eamon McGowan
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    Oct 16th 2019, 10:36 PM

    We really need to deport the fraudsters, every bogus asylum seeker is taking the place of a genuine one.

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    Mute Eamon McGowan
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    Oct 16th 2019, 10:35 PM

    The few genuine asylum seekers shoulsd be allowed to

    We really need to deport the fraudsters, every bogus asylum seeker is taking the place of a genuine one.

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    Mute Ali Ní Dhomhnaill
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    Oct 16th 2019, 9:54 PM

    €462,046 does not average out at 18 million, your 6million short on your maths. €24,026,392 a year

    86
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    Mute Ali Ní Dhomhnaill
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    Oct 16th 2019, 9:56 PM

    @Ali Ní Dhomhnaill: till September sorry too tired

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    Mute bill2345
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    Oct 16th 2019, 10:09 PM

    @Ali Ní Dhomhnaill: lol I’d be so embarrassed omg

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    Mute Keelan O'neill
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    Oct 16th 2019, 9:50 PM

    How many times would that get Joyce from Zurich to Dublin and back.

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    Mute GrahamMManning
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    Oct 16th 2019, 10:02 PM

    @Keelan O’neill: hmmm…sure he wants to come back?

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    Mute Freezepeach
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    Oct 16th 2019, 10:04 PM

    “Look after our own” is very thinly veiled racism. Look closely and you will see that most decent people don’t subscribe to such apathy.

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    Mute United Ireland
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    Oct 16th 2019, 10:06 PM

    @Freezepeach: Ur profile pic is racism im calling the guard’s

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    Mute GrahamMManning
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    Oct 16th 2019, 10:10 PM

    @United Ireland: need help dialing the number cos you sure do when typing?

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    Mute United Ireland
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    Oct 16th 2019, 10:14 PM

    @GrahamMManning: hamMmannning go hug a tree for urself or maybe wash Ur hair & get a job living on handouts all Ur live aswell I bet

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    Mute GrahamMManning
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    Oct 16th 2019, 10:20 PM

    @United Ireland: such cutting insults, how will my fragile ego not crumble? Bald as a cue ball and gainfully employee as a teacher. What do u do kid?

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    Mute GrahamMManning
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    Oct 16th 2019, 10:20 PM

    @GrahamMManning: employed.

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    Mute Lionheart1
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    Oct 16th 2019, 10:20 PM

    @United Ireland: If you change the word more to no then that’s racism.

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    Mute GooseSkipGoose
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    Oct 16th 2019, 10:28 PM

    @GrahamMManning: yawn, what a predictable narrow minded comment

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    Mute GrahamMManning
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    Oct 16th 2019, 10:32 PM

    @GooseSkipGoose: care to articulate how, maybe even offer some substantive input yourself?

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    Mute ken gray
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    Oct 16th 2019, 10:10 PM

    Scammers !

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    Mute GrahamMManning
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    Oct 16th 2019, 10:11 PM

    @ken gray: all of em yeah?

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