Another Joe Higgins Leaflet from the 1996 Dublin West By-Election. This time Ballyfermot focused. It was the election that put Joe on the map, as he came close to winning the seat won by our current Finance Minister Brian Lenihan.
He asks Voters to vote for him and ‘Other Genuine Left Wing Candidates’ which is fairly uncommon.
We also learn that in 1996 a TD earned £32,000 a year. In 1983 it was £16,400 a year .What is it now?
Joe Higgins from the 1996 Dublin West by election, where Brian Lenihan junior won the seat caused by the death of his father Brian Lenihan senior.
Joe was standing for Militant Labour (the forerunner of the Socialist Party) and caused a major shock when he polled just 252 first preferences less than Brian Lenihan.
He was running on an Anti Water Charges platform and must have been very annoyed to find that his Water charges had been paid for him by the council!!
Lisa Maher from the 2004 local elections where she narrowly missed taking a seat, by just 84 votes.
Diarmuid Naessens wasn’t elected although did outpoll one of the Fianna Fail candidates.
Another thing from that count was that of the SWPs Martin Donohoes 308 tranfers, he got just 84.
Naessens was a very active member of the anti bin tax campaign.
From the 1999 local elections a flyer from Mick Murphy of The Socialist Party running in Tallaght Central. Murphy polled 753 votes and failed to win a seat.
Some of Joe’s literature from the 1999 Euros. If only we’d listened to him about “The outlawing of speculation in building land and profiteering in the housing market….” .
Its a sign of the times too that Joe wouldn’t be mentioning ‘GM foods’ much these days.
Irish Election Literature 
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