Former Tipperary TD Seamus Healy confirms he will contest next general election

Former Clonmel-based Independent TD Seamus Healy has confirmed he will contest the next Dáil election in the wake of the Electoral Commission’s recommendation that Tipperary be redivided into two three-seater Dáil constituencies.

The Commission’s 2023 Constituency Review Report, published last week, recommends that Tipperary revert to being divided into South and North Tipperary constituencies for Dáil elections.

The recommendation has been widely welcomed in the south of the county, which effectively lost a seat under the amalgamation into a single five-seater all county constituency in 2016.

Since then, there have only been two south Tipperary based Tds where previously under the old South Tipperary constituency there were three TDs.

When Seamus Healy, founder of the left-wing Workers & Unemployment Action Group, lost his Dáil seat in the 2020 general election, many thought that was the end of his career in politics.

He is now 73-years-old but age isn’t detering him from running for the Dáil again. He is still very active doing constituency work as a WUAG activist and was prominently involved in the Save St Brigid’s Hospital campaign in Carrick-on-Suir.

Mr Healy, who served as a TD between 2000 and 2007 and 2011 and 2020, welcomed the Electoral Commission’s recommendation to restore the South and North Tipperary constituencies.

“I think it’s reflective of the situation on the ground in terms of population. I would have expected a small bit of Waterford around Clonmel and Carrick-on-Suir to be brought into (South Tipperary) but it hasn’t happened.”

He says the unification of south and north Tipperary into a single Dáil constituency and local authority has been disastrous for south Tipperary, which he now believes is playing “second fiddle” to north Tipperary.

Read more reaction to the Electoral Commission's 2023 Constituency Review report in this week's edition of The Nationalist now on sale in local shops.