On Friday afternoon, RTÉ informed People Before Profit that our Dublin Central candidate, Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin is to be excluded from all of its Dublin Central television and radio debates.
Eoghan is the only one of the nine candidates or parties that achieved more than 4% of first preference votes in the Dublin Central constituency in the 2024 general election to be excluded from the debates. A petition has been launched at eoc.ie/rtepetition asking RTÉ to allow Eoghan’s voice to be heard.
Eoghan said “I was looking forward to debating with the other candidates in Dublin Central and putting forward our vision of a city we can live in. I find it astonishing that RTÉ have excluded me from all of the panels for the by-election debates. Any objective analysis of previous election results indicates there are nine viable candidates in this by-election. All of them, apart from me, have been included in at least one panel. For some reason, I have been excluded by RTÉ.
“It is up to the people of Dublin Central to decide who their next TD will be, not RTÉ. RTÉ should be facilitating the electorate hearing the viewpoints of different candidates, not arbitrarily excluding one of us.
“In the 2024 general election. I achieved 4.49% of the first preference votes and I was just one vote behind the outgoing Green Party TD when I was eliminated on the fifth count. RTÉ published criteria that they claim to have used to select participants in their by-election debates. The criteria are far from self-explanatory, but it appears that RTÉ made 4.5% of 2024 general election first preference votes the cut-off point for debate participation, as Malachy Steenson on 4.9% has been included on the debates, while I have been excluded with a general election vote of 4.49%. The next candidate behind me in the general election had less than half my vote.”
Dublin Central by-election Director of Elections, Paul Murphy said:
“It is an outrageous move by RTÉ to exclude People Before Profit’s unique national voice from this very important by-election. Between Eoghan and Clare Daly, the radical left achieved 8.5% of the first preference vote in Dublin Central in the last general election. Yet RTÉ have decided that voice will not be heard in the debates for the by-election.
“In the latest opinion poll for Dublin, Red C recorded support for People Before Profit at 6%, the same as Labour and double that of the Green Party in Dublin. Labour and the Green Party have been included in the RTÉ by-election debates.
“We have launched a petition on eoc.ie/rtepetition for people to appeal to RTÉ to reverse this decision. You do not have to support our candidate or our politics to see the necessity of RTÉ facilitating a real debate in Dublin Central. We are asking everyone to sign our petition and ensure that RTÉ allows Eoghan’s voice to be heard.”
Richard Boyd Barrett said “People Before Profit-Solidarity have 3 TDs and we have 15 years of uninterrupted representation in the Dáil. In all those years I have never seen a decision like this to exclude our voice. This decision is both inexplicable and unacceptable and will be challenged very robustly. RTÉ must immediately revisit their unfair decision, and they must include Eoghan in their debates.”