Thirty seven local candidates compete for 18 council seats
Pic: Istock
Thirty seven candidates will compete for eighteen seats on Roscommon County Council in the 2024 Local Elections taking place on Friday week, June 7th.
The most crowded field is in the Boyle LEA where sixteen candidates have declared, including outgoing councillors Valerie Byrne, Liam Callaghan and Tom Crosby.
Independent councillors Nigel Dineen and Tony Waldron along with Fianna Fáil councillors Paschal Fitzmaurice and Marty McDermott are among the 11 candidates contesting for the six seats in the Roscommon LEA.
In the Athlone LEA, outgoing councillors Laurence Fallon and Emer Kelly, both Independent, along with Fine Gael’s John Naughten and John Keogh of Fianna Fáil make up the list of ten candidates vying for the six seats.
Fianna Fáil are running seven candidates in total, Fine Gael and Sinn Féin both have six declared while one candidate each from the Green party and Aontú are on the ballot paper. Independent Ireland have two candidates seeking election.
Six of the 37 candidates are female. Sinn Féin is running three, two in the Boyle LEA, Fine Gael one while the other two female candidates are sitting independent councillors, Valerie Byrne and Emer Kelly.
Six outgoing councillors will not be seeking re-election in the June elections. Three are Fianna Fáil representatives, Cllr Joe Murphy and Cllr John Cummins, both in the Boyle LEA, with Cllr Orla Leyden stepping down in the Roscommon LEA.
Long serving Sinn Féin councillor Michael Mulligan is retiring in the Boyle LEA while two Independents Cllr Donal Kilduff (Athlone LEA) and Cllr Kathleen Shanagher (Roscommon LEA) are also calling it a day.
One of the youngest local election candidates in the country is 18-year-old Sam Brooks, a Sinn Féin candidate who is contesting for a seat in the Athlone LEA.
According to Census 2022, the number of people of voting age in the county stands at just over 53,000.
The European Parliament elections take place on the same day as the Local Elections. Midlands North-West, which includes Roscommon, will have 28 candidates on the ballot with five seats to fill.
