Will Aontu have canidates to vote for in next election

Aontú should replace the Ú with a D.

Mar níl ach AON TD acu.

How do you assimilate that statement with a Referendum that the majority of folks didnt care enough about to even bother voting?

Although it's refreshing that Aontú at least ask questions about immigration, a quick scan of their website reveals somewhat vague and unambitious policies.

Processing asylum claims in six months is hardly a massive improvement? I'd like to see 7 days.

Destroy travel documents = sent home: good.

Module housing also available to Irish = good.

I would give them a vote in LE and GE, but not my first preference.

"The asylum application process is shockingly slow. People genuinely seeking asylum should have their applications processed within 6 month and those who are not genuine and who don’t fulfil the criteria should be sent home within 6 months. False applications take resources off those who really need them.

 Those who destroy their travel documents to confuse the application process or make it slower and longer should be sent home. It must be remembered that this is a small cohort of people. None the less we can’t afford to entertain for years those who are not asylum seekers but pretend to be.

 Services or housing that are designed to help asylum seekers should be also available to Irish people in real need. For example, providing modular accommodation for asylum seekers and not for homeless Irish people is bound to sow division within society.

The Debate

Ireland should have a debate around the issue of immigration. It must be an honest, respectful and responsible discussion. Suppression of the debate will not make its necessity less but will push the natural anxiety of some underground to be harvested by less responsible people. Honest concern with regards migration can quickly be transformed into anti migrant sentiment by unscrupulous politicians and activists. Grave wrongs have been committed and lives have been lost when some politicians seek to manipulate anxiety to make political capital from this issue.

Suppressing an honest debate cedes the issue to these people. Our current government have held no useful dialogue on this issue and drawn on little of the expertise that is available in assessing and planning for immigration. It is a dereliction of duty to all our people that we muddle through blindly.

When people come to Ireland they must be treated with equality, respect and dignity. Discrimination of any sort is not acceptable and must be rooted out.

A sustainable migration plan should have broad democratic support after being discussed honestly and informed by the opinion of genuine experts. It must also fulfil our international and ethical responsibilities. Aontú seeks a migration plan that meets our obligations as a people, is economically and culturally enriching, humanitarian, and is sustainable in terms of capacity. The answer does not lie in extremes, its a nuanced debate that lies neither in walls nor in open borders.

I don't think it was contrarianism more cynical opportunism using a referendum to publicise his party

Thats not what the GE polls are saying.

We can't have an immigration system whereby the deliberate destruction of travel documents by an illegal immigrant results in that immigrant acquiring the ability to stay in the destination country forever.

I was replying to @BlueSkyDreams, who asked:

"Good summary, but how do they propose to send people "home" in 6 months?

If they have no docs, where is home?"

What are the answers to @BlueSkyDreams questions?

Those two questions imply that it is difficult to remove people who deliberately discard their travel documents.

I disagree with "give up trying to send them back and just accept them".

By doing that, we have rewarded the criminal

Established parties tend to have established policies, people know what they stand for. Because they are established.

I was tempted to vote for them in Northern Ireland election but chose not to vote for anyone. They seemed to believe in traditional Irish values. It seems if you are Irish nationalist you have no choice but to vote for ultra liberal parties. I noticed that Joe Brolly's brother was one of their politicians who was a former teacher of mine. His personality was similar to Joe's so that put me off voting for them.

They were founded to push a policy that the majority rejected. The party solely exists for that purpose, otherwise Toibin would still be on the SF front bench and would have been out campaigning for Yes/Yes like the rest of the party.

If you think that there's anything solid behind them going No/No, you're going to find the first branch meeting pretty challenging.

Would be nice to have a party that isn't on the far left when it comes to social issues. There's a serious lack of choice in Irish politics, Sure the majority voted for abortion but still 30% didn't, right now no political party represents that sizeable number of people.

No I'm just not pro killing babies in the womb.

Working man 😀😀😀

Anna Daly. Runs Life FM. Regularly hosts anti vaxers and pro Russian bots.

Had a feeling it'd be her. Luckily I'm south central now so she's not near me.

They don't lean far enough to the right for me although I'd agree with some of their policies.

I still think Toibin is a shinner though just under a different name now and would still be with them if Mcdonald let the member have a free vote in the abortion referendum.

The poll here before the recent referendums was a better barometer of public opinion than any other opinion poll I'd seen

She would probably be still with them only she didn't get the nod to be put forward as a candidate.

But I'm happy to see her exactly where she is single handedly costing the shinners votes every time she opens her mouth.

Her bosses up in the Ardoyne won't be best pleased.

Aontu only have 1 TD but they don't even seem to have anyone else who's even close to becoming one. Who was the most successful Aontu candidate beyond Toibin in the last election? Did they even get to keep their deposit?*

As for their councilors - it may seem impressive that they got 3 elected in 2019, 1 year after the party was formed. However, they actually had 7 councilors (who had defected from other parties) before the election so in that context it was a mixed bag, at best.

They may have been the only party in the Dail to back the No votes but that doesn't mean that all No voters are suddenly interested in voting for them. These upcoming local elections are huge for them. Those are traditionally the springboard for politicians to get into the Dail. I'll be interested to see what their messaging will be like going into that.

*Just looking at the 2020 results. They received 41,575 votes and ran 26 candidates. Peader Toibin received 7,322 of those votes. That means that the other 25 candidates received an average of 1,370 votes each. Unless there was another outlier amongst that bunch then I reckon that that means that the rest of them all lost their deposits.

Both Renua and Aontu were established on anti abortion views and ran candidates. The fact that only one of either was elected (not a chance that Tobin was elected on this view rather than his good Republican one) clearly means that the vast majority of 30% who voted against the referendum don't see it as their main issue in everyday life. The reason being that it is nothing more than an ideological one.

By now running in the euro elections Tobin is practically admitting that Aontu as a political party in Ireland is a dead duck, he's running for the hills in an attempt to secure his own political future, it's a clear eff you to his party colleagues.