Vibrancy must be restored to town centres in Tipperary, says Fine Gael candidate

Fine Gael General Election candidate Michael Murphy was thrust into the spotlight last April when he defeated Senator Garret Ahearn in the party’s selection convention for Tipperary South for the General Election. He then achieved the largest vote in the county at the Local Elections in June, which was followed by his election as Mayor of Clonmel for the second time.

He says he has been knocking on doors consistently since his campaign got underway on August 7, “listening to families, and the issues and challenges that they face.

“I always endeavour to knock on as many doors as possible myself, but I’m lucky to have a great team and a great structure behind me. I’m very grateful that the Fine Gael grassroots have put their confidence in me to be their candidate”.

Cllr Murphy says that his overarching ambition is in the context of resources at national level, and ensuring that south Tipperary gets its fair share of those resources.

“I want to see childcare being more affordable and accessible. We need to build more houses. We need fair but firm criminal justice and immigration systems, and strong community policing units across the constituency.

“We need to reward hard work so that people who work more get to hold onto more of their income, and we need to reduce the tax burden on working families.

“We also need to deliver for small businesses and food producers”.

He says there are also a lot of local issues that need to be addressed.

These include the extent to which there is vacancy, dereliction and a lack of footfall in town centres across all of our key towns.

“It’s all about restoring vibrancy and footfall in our town centres”.

He says that the issues that are coming up most often on the doorstep are housing, law and order and immigration.

His response to people who are campaigning for a change of government is that “in the context of the global challenges that Ireland faces - such as a potential trade war with the United States, instability in the Middle East, Russian aggression in the Ukraine and the ongoing threat from China - we need a safe pair of hands.

“Fine Gael has shown repeatedly through the financial crisis, Brexit, Covid and the war in Ukraine that while we haven’t got everything right, we’ve got a lot of things right”.

As his day of destiny draws closer, Michael Murphy says “I cannot change the past, but I’m really passionate about the politics of the future".

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