‘This was trying to undermine my character’ - Roger Kennedy

Roger Kennedy is an experienced political campaigner so he can sense if something is off in an election. 

That was the case this time around when he sensed the week of the election his vote would drop because of a hot topic in the LEA at present.

He said:  “I met over 10,000 people in the course of the campaign. We have a population of over 28,000 plus.

“The campaign went very good but the last week of the campaign, particularily with the announcement of the IPAs or refugees as they are termed, the fact that 80 of those were going to be housed at Dundrum House Hotel had a huge impact on the campaign for me personally in the last ten days.

“That had its toll on my vote as well, the fact my vote is down,” Roger said.

The impact of social media on voting has been witnessed worldwide, and so too in this election: “Particularily in the last two days when social media went mad with scurrilous accusations, remarks and statements about my activity, who I met, who I was with, where I was seen, where I wasn’t seen and things like that. 

“You know, people talk about how AI would affect elections anywhere, well I have seen the direct impact of it in the last week and particularly in the day before polling and the day of polling where statements were flying around social media that impacted directly on my vote. 

 “I’m not making accusations against any of my opponents as candidates but this was floating around in the ether and somebody has got to take responsibility for it and somebody has got to say ‘yea, I put up that saying you were here or you were there’ just to detract from my vote. 

“Other people might say ‘oh you were going to lose 300 anyway with Liam Browne and Declan Burgess and others going so well’ like you know, anybody that puts their name on the ticket is going to take votes from somebody. That is the situation, you know I have been long enough around. 

“I have met people involved in the situation in Dundrum, they contacted me,  they rang me, they told me this was happening but how do you prevent something like that? 

“How do you negate something like that or how do you stop it happening? 

“In future, or in other situations, it could cost somebody their seat. It could have an impact if I was to be down in the voting,” Roger said before adding: 

“Something like this was trying to undermine my character and everything I have stood for in politics.”