'The people of Longford deserve better, housing is a right not a luxury' says Barry Campion

A huddle of neon yellow, can be seen from the Granard SuperValu car park. On the Tromra road, pulling on their high-vis jackets and passing out bundles of leaflets is the Sinn Féin canvassing team headed up by Barry Campion the candidate for the Longford-Westmeath constituency.

It is 16:17 on Friday, November 22. The streets are powdered with snow, the air is cold, and the paths are icy. Barry Campion is pulling on his gloves. Sorca Clarke TD, also running, is there too with her daughters in the wings supporting her. There is excitement in the air, there is camaraderie.

It’s exactly seven days until voters take to the polls and the pressure is on.

The canvassing for Friday kicks off on the Tromra road and Barry has been kind enough to invite the Longford Leader along.

Barry has been a Longford resident for around a decade with his husband Ciaran. He is no stranger to the people of Granard having lived there for six years. The past four years have been spent living out in Moyne.

It’s still bright on Tromra Road. However, since it's just past four, not many people seem to be home. Those who are, at least most of them, seem to know Barry, chatting away like old friends. Some even invite us in for a cuppa.

We walk and talk, Barry is knocking on doors as we go. Immediately he begins to discuss Granard itself and the greater Longford area and how he hopes to improve life here.

He references the estate we’re in, “It’s a prime example of urban neglect if you can call Granard urban.”

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There are a few derelict properties scattered around the estate and even more that loom in the background, abandoned and sitting like a nosy neighbour leering at the residents of Tromra Road.

“Every estate in this town is badly maintained, we’re not just talking about the housing we’re talking about the common areas as well.

“There’s no management in place, they’re hiding behind excuses such as residents associations but you also have a huge shortage of housing.

“Social and affordable and just housing for people, and then you have restrictions on planning, In 2022 the Longford County

Council built 20 or 22 council houses,” explains Barry, “We’re coming up to Christmas now, 14 and a half thousand people nationally are homeless, 4,000 of them are children, so that’s one of our priorities.”

Barry’s plan to tackle this aligns with his party’s plans as he explains, “Our housing plan is very detailed, it’s split into social and affordable housing.

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“It’s 300,000 houses in the first term of government and then the next year it's another 25 on top of that,” he remarked.

The full details are in the Sinn Féin manifesto which promises to deliver a public housing fund and much more.

As we continued through the estate trying our best not to slip Barry began to talk about his second priority, education.

“We have a Fianna Fáil Minister for Education who, a few days ago said the teacher shortage is an opportunity.

“In the whole country, you have around 100 primary school vacancies for teachers so I don’t know what opportunities she's on about.”

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He is cut short by someone answering the door. Surprisingly there has been no animosity throughout the canvas. You tend to hear horror stories of candidates out on the canvass receiving less than warm welcomes but it was not the case today rather the team is met with people happy to chat with them.

“So, Norma Foley’s excuse is that this is an opportunity. But like all these issues with teacher shortages and skill shortages of builders, it comes from one place which is the shortage of housing.” he continued.

Crime is another issue, he highlights the upsurge in quarrels happening throughout the county.

Transport is something Barry has found a lot of people are in need of.

“They need reliable transport to the likes of hospitals for appointments in towns like Mullingar and Tullamore but that is impossible because they just don't exist.
“

Granard used to be a town that was served well by public transport, it still has a few regional cross country services and the service into Longford.

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“But what about having a bus that goes directly into the nearest train station in Edgeworthstown?”

We stop at a front door and wait for an answer. While we wait Barry discusses the vast amount of young people leaving the country.

We’re losing young people, last year we had more emigrate to Australia than we did at the height of the recession.

“That’s what we’re up against.

“People don’t like losing their kids to foreign lands, especially when they’re so far away.”

Barry slips a leaflet through the letterbox of the last house on the route and with that, we’re off up the town to Beachwood Park.

As we sit in the car we continue to discuss.

“In the last few days, we’re seeing that there actually is such a positive response. Is it the same as 2020 I don’t know because

2020 was huge, it was an amazing time for us,” he recalled.

“We’re a bit different from the other parties in the sense that we’re long-term. We have policies that aren’t going to happen overnight.

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“Today the big thing is a United Ireland.

“A lot of economists, like David McWilliams will tell you that our country as a whole and our economy will be better off united as well as our health service.

“Wouldn’t it be much better to have an all-Ireland health service infrastructure that is designed around an Island and not counties?” he asked.

But do Sinn Féin have a plan for the current health sector? Well according to Barry yes.

“We need to rapidly increase hospital beds and increase spending but not just increase spending.

“We have identified that there could be a billion in cuts due to wastage which is wastage as a common theme across the government, not just health.

“We’re looking after kids that have a scoliosis diagnosis, kids with special needs as Simon Harris said they wouldn't be waiting more than six months without a diagnosis but several have gone past the stage of being operated on.”

We arrive in Beachwood, a similar energy is afoot much like the beginning of the Tromra Road canvass, although Sorca Clarke lost a few supporters in her daughters who, in her words, were staging a “sit-in” in her car.

We head into Beachwood and discuss another issue that holds a lot of weight this election, immigration.

“We need to be more compassionate,” said Barry.

“We wouldn’t have an immigration problem if we didn’t have a housing problem.

“People are stuck in situations in Ukraine, in Syria, in different parts of Africa. They’re emigrating in emergencies for different reasons.

“Politicians can’t be getting racist and they have to show compassion. What the far right is stirring is wrong, it’s completely wrong.

“When you have people at risk of attacks and vandalism on IPAS centres, it’s disgusting. Does the immigration system need reform? Of course it does.

“Because if there are people coming into this country that shouldn’t be here which there are plenty of they need to be processed nearly overnight and it’s tough” he explained.

Barry Campion is one of the five Longford based candidates of the twenty in the field vying to win one of the five Dáil seats on offer in the Longford-Westmeath constituency on November 29.