Former Mayor of Galway, City Councillor Mike Cubbard, has thrown his hat into the ring for the forthcoming general election, announcing his intention to stand as an independent.

He said that since he was first elected to Galway City Council in 2014, he had a proven track record as a straight-talking independent public representative making a tangible difference for the people of his area.

“To build on 10 years of successful delivery I am now asking the people of Galway to ‘break the cycle’ of traditional party politics and elect me as their progressive Independent candidate,” he said.

This will be Cllr Cubbard’s fourth general election campaign — in 2020 he secured 2,676 first preference votes, being eliminated on the fifth count. He first stood for the Dáil in 2011, increasing his share of the vote in 2016 and again at the last election.

In the June local elections this year, he topped the poll in the Galway City Central electoral area, with an almost 20% share of the vote, having secured 1,486 first preferences.

Having failed to secure a seat on Galway City Council in his first foray into electoral politics in 2009, he went on to top the poll in his area in 2014 and has retained that poll-topping posiiton in each subsequent local election.

Cllr Cubbard said that he was putting himself forward in the general election as an Independent who was not afraid to ‘say it as it is’.

“I will insist that Galway receives an equal investment in infrastructure, as successive governments have consistently prioritised Dublin at the expense of other regions. This Dublin-centric approach has left Galway and the wider North and Western region lagging in development, resulting in its designation as the only ‘region in transition’ in Ireland, facing unique challenges.

“This lack of balanced investment has led to our region being ranked 218th out of 234 on the European Commission’s Regional Index. Although Galway City and County are at the core of the North and Western region, we have received only 7.9% of national infrastructural investment, while 66.5% went to the Eastern and Midlands area,” he said.

Cllr Cubbard added that Galway continued to face a housing crisis, with families and individuals burdened by high rents and no sign of affordable homes, soaring childcare costs and with UHG having the country’s third highest number of patients treated on trolleys in October.

“This is not progress. Many people also feel increasingly disconnected from their TDs – I want to change that,” he said.

Cllr Cubbard added that, as in the local elections in June, he would not be using election posters in this campaign.

Pictured: Cllr Mike Cubbard.