'Willie's the man' Taoiseach Simon Harris backs Portlaoise councillor as new Laois TD
Praise for Cllr Willie Aird and tribute for outgoing TD Charlie Flanagan
"Willie's the man," the Taoiseach Simon Harris has declared, speaking in praise of Portlaoise Cllr Willie Aird who is the only candidate selected to run in the next general election.
He spoke during his visit to the 2024 National Ploughing Championships, paying a warm tribute to Deputy Charlie Flanagan who is not contesting the upcoming election.
The Leinster Express / Laois Live had asked the Taoiseach if Cllr Willie Aird was the right man for the seat, and should a woman not have been chosen for the role.
The Taoiseach began by thanking Dep Flanagan, a native of Mountmellick.
"Can I take the opportunity of standing here in County Laois to pay tribute to my friend, my colleague, my former cabinet colleague Charlie Flanagan. Charlie served as the chair of the Parliamentary Party when I served as the secretary, and we worked closely together. We worked closely together in cabinet as well.
"He has served the people of Laois, Offaly and Ireland with distinction. The role he has played in Northern Ireland, in the Department of Justice, as the Minister for Foreign Affairs, as the Minister for Children, he deserves our thanks. He has our thanks, of the party and I want to thank him as leader of Fine Gael and Taoiseach for his service to our country.
Taoiseach Simon Harris speaking to press at the National Ploughing Championships, next to Cllr Willie Aird, with Deputy Charlie Flanagan in the background with other Fine Gael TDS. Photo: Lynda Kiernan
“In Willie Aird we have found the person who is going to retain the seat. I have no doubt about it. This is a man with an extraordinary electoral record. An overnight success after about 40 years of success in electoral politics. Somebody who has topped the poll consistently and won the confidence of people in Laois. We take nothing for granted in this constituency, or in any constituency, but I know with Willie’s hard work and energy we are going to keep our seat in Laois. I want Willie Aird to be in the next parliamentary party.
“In terms of female candidates, I absolutely reaffirm my party’s commitment to at least hitting the 40% gender quota, it’s an important priority,” he said.
Deputy Charlie Flanagan also spoke to the Leinster Express / Laois Live.
“My last ploughing as a TD is somewhat tinged with sadness because I won’t be here in this capacity again. However, I’ve no regrets. The people in Laois were very good to me over the years. I was returned election after election after election. I stood in nine general elections and succeeded in eight. Not sure if there was a tenth in me. I’m very pleased that we had our selection process and I’ll be succeeded by Willie who is a man of tremendous experience and competence. I look forward to working with him, whether it’s November or March.
“I’m very pleased to be the recipient of a very warm tribute paid to me by the Taoiseach, who hadn’t seen me and didn’t know I was standing behind him.e He made some very generous comments which mean quite a lot to me.
He revealed that he is planning to push for an increase in Ireland’s defence forces after his political retirement.
"The whole basis of retirement is you have time to do other things, and to take things easier. I do a bit of work in Northern Ireland, I am vice chairman of the international charity Cooperation Ireland and I look forward to intensifying my role in that. I may do a bit of work on the security and defence side of that. Ireland is particularly weak, to my mind, in the whole area of European security. I have been attending meetings over the past four years in my capacity as chairman of the Defence committee in Dáil Éireann. I look forward to perhaps doing a bit of work in that sphere also," he said.
He points to possible threats to Ireland from Russia and is concerned at the United States political uncertainty.
“We are very much behind the 8ball in our contribution to European security defence. We are currently investing about 0.28% of our GDP on defence matters. Ursula van der Leyen said recently that she’d like all countries to reach a 2% target. I don’t think we are going to do that overnight but we do want to look seriously at the role of our defence forces.
Not only in terms of our domestic security but also in the area of cyber attacks, Ireland is not immune from international engagement in that regard.
"Already we’ve had incidents where we’ve had Russian submarines intelligence gathering ships in our seas. It’s something of an embarrassment to say we’re not able to monitor that in any meaningful way.
"So I hope that in the next five years the next Government takes defence more seriously and invests in our defence and security sector. We see a lack of preparedness in Europe which can be particularly pointed in Ireland’s direction. We see an ever threatening Russia, and we see a level of uncertainty in the United States which is worrying,” he said.