So, what exactly is the 1st Independent Mayo project?

The 1st Independent MAYO project is a new and innovative approach to the selection of prospective political candidates. Under ‘normal’ circumstances, the established political parties present their own pre-selected candidates to the electorate, or, independent candidates have to fund, run and manage their own campaigns. Unfortunately, both of these models create an unfair bias in favour of the larger established parties - not least of all because the large parties have voted themselves substantial funding from (our) State resources. The other major problem is that once elected, members of the established parties are obliged to follow the party leader’s lead - irrespective of their own pre-election promises or of the urgings of their own consciences. In short, the Irish political system as it stands today is neither truly democratic, nor truly representative of the electorate. Indeed, in light of the overwhelming evidence of endemic cronyism, rampant incompetence, routine corruption and criminal cover-ups, many would argue that the Irish political system as it stands today is simply not fit for purpose - unless of course that purpose is to protect a highly-compromised ‘status quo’ at the direct and enduring expense of the rest of us. The 1st Independent Mayo project is designed to inspire would-be independent candidates all over Ireland to work together in order to achieve real and radical reform of an indisputably broken political system.       

The Process: The simple but revolutionary idea is to have a group of independent candidates pool their combined resources and support teams for the purpose of holding local town-hall meetings all around the County and to engage in an open ‘collaborative competition’ before the electorate to see who the people would most like to represent them. In this manner, the costs, administration and footwork is shared by all the candidates, and a good turnout at each of the public meetings is guaranteed.. Not to mention the parallel guarantee of lively and interesting debates on topics which genuinely matter to the local electorate.    

See Stephens bio here.

Stephen is running as an active member of Integrity Ireland and will be basing his campaign solidly on the principles outlined on the Integrity Ireland website.   

View bios of all seven candidates here

Areas of immediate concern to Stephen are:

     Rescuing politics from the grasp of career opportunists by derailing the proverbial ‘gravy train’ and linking TDs wages to the average working wage.

     Ensuring the restoration, protection and development of rural Ireland.

     Ending widespread waste and incompetence in the public sector.

     Enforcing public ownership of the banks and introducing real accountability for reckless management in all of our publicly-funded bodies.

    Keeping people in their homes by implementing humane solutions to the mortgage arrears crisis, and by removing or radically modifying the bank veto.

    Respecting the ownership of our national and natural resources and returning the profits to the Irish people – not to outside corporations.

    Reforming the justice and policing systems by ending political appointments.

    Establishing a genuinely independent ‘statutory oversight body’ staffed by credible, qualified professionals, to deal with the historical problem of corruption, cronyism and criminal cover-ups in Irish State agencies.

    Establishing an independent Judicial Council to deal with judicial misconduct.

    Revoke State funding for political parties; to be redistributed to individual TDs.

    Abolish the party whip system & restore real democratic process to the Dail.

    Reinstate Article 48!  

Stephen talks with TDs Clare Daly & Mick Wallace

Stephen speaks at launch of 1st Ind Mayo initiative

Integrity Ireland members arrest Gardai (250k views)