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Politics

14th Jan 2020

Verona Murphy to run as independent candidate in general election

Alan Loughnane

Verona Murphy independent

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar last month said he was glad she wasn’t elected.

Former Fine Gael election candidate Verona Murphy is set to run as an Independent candidate in the forthcoming general election.

In an interview with the New Ross Standard newspaper, Murphy confirmed that she would be running as an Independent candidate following her controversial by-election campaign last year.

The move will likely cause some pause for thought in Fine Gael, who are running two current TDs for re-election in the constituency, Michael D’Arcy and Paul Kehoe.

Murphy is the president of the Irish Road Haulage Association and stood for Fine Gael in Wexford by-election in November, finishing third in the voting.

Fianna Fáil’s Malcolm Byrne topped the poll in the by-election and claimed the available seat. Fianna Fáil are running Byrne and two other candidates in the next general election.

Murphy was deselected from the Fine Gael ticket following the by-election after she received criticism for a comments she made about migrants.

She later said her comments had been misrepresented, and said it had been a “character assassination” by the media. In December, she spoke on South East Radio, asking, “Do we have to wait to have a London Bridge incident on Wexford Bridge?”

Murphy is due to conduct an interview on South East Radio at 10am on Tuesday morning.

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