"Another Ireland is possible" -Mayo candidate Daly
"In one form or another Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have been in power for over 100 years. They have been good for corporations, landlords, vulture funds, big farmers and big developers. But the majority have not benefited."
Those are the views of Joe Daly, who is running as a People Before Profit Solitarity candidate in the Mayo constituency.
He elaborated: "They have failed to tax the rich, provide affordable housing, stop rising inequality and protect the many from the cost of living crisis, provide public services free at the point of delivery, provide care for those who need it, cut carbon emissions by tackling the big polluters or protect our biodiversity.
"They are hell bent on destroying our military neutrality and have created the conditions for the far right to scapegoat refugees and asylum seekers.
"Shamefully they have protected Israel as it has carried out a horrific genocide of the Palestinian people, refusing to impose sanctions, allowing weapons and munitions to be flown through Irish sovereign airspace, refused to expel the Israeli Ambassador and continued to allow the US military to use Shannon airport as an overseas airbase for its imperialist interventions worldwide.
"This election takes place at a time when Ireland has unprecedented wealth in the hands of a tiny minority.
"But we also have record levels of homelessness, inequality and deprivation. Over 14,700 people including 4,500 children will be homeless this Christmas.
"One in five children are experiencing deprivation. Many households are struggling with cost of living increases. Many young people are forced to emigrate away.
"Affordable housing is out of the reach of the many, education is costly when it should be free and childcare costs amount to another mortgage for many households.
"Those with additional needs are locked out of basic services waiting for essential assessments and therapies and even school places. Many disabled people live on or below the poverty line. Hundreds of thousands are on waiting lists for essential medical care.
"All of this in spite of the fact that the government has unprecedented resources available to it. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael will never go after the richest in society as that is the class that funds them and the class from which they arise.
"The evidence shows that these parties have always worked flat out to force workers to shoulder the burden of capitalist crisis. The Apple tax case shows clearly that they were hell bent on giving over €13 billion that was owed to the Irish people to Apple’s shareholders. This shows whose side they are on.
"In People Before Profit we want to see fundamental change in Irish society.
"We believe another Ireland is possible if we have a genuine left government backed up by people power to tackle the vested interests and break from the vice grip of pro market capitalist policies to invest in universal access to high quality public services paid for by progressive taxation on the colossal wealth in Irish society.
"We have fully costed proposals to nationalise the ESB and provide cheap electricity, to have a fully public childcare system, to build a state construction company to solve the housing crisis, to end all means testing, to increase public sector pay by 10%, to double investment to provide a free hugely expanded public transport system.
"We want to increase child benefit by 20%, to give farmers a fair eco-socialist transition via a Dairy Herd Reduction Scheme and a Biodiversity Scheme and to remove all private vested interests from our health system and build a single tier NHS style health system based on medical need and not ability to pay."