European Election Candidate – Clare Daly

Name: Clare Daly

European Constituency: Dublin

Preferred pronoun: She/her

Party: Independents 4 Change

Have you held a previous elected position?: Yes – TD

What are your reasons for running?:

Ireland and Europe are at a crossroads. We face huge and unprecedented challenges – climate change, historic and catastrophic inequality, an increasingly multipolar world. Far-reaching decisions on how to confront and address these challenges will be made in Europe in the next half-decade.

These decisions will define our future.

We need strong voices in Europe to stand up for the rights of ordinary citizens when these decisions are made. If elected to the European Parliament I will be one of those strong voices, and think and hope I can be a strong advocate for ordinary people against the EU’s increasing militarisation, against the rising far-right, against the sustained attack on workers’ rights and people’s right to housing, against the profound and systemic inequality that allows the 1% hoard for themselves the vast majority of the planet’s wealth.

What parliamentary group will you sit within EP and why?:

I haven’t decided yet

What do you think are the biggest issues facing young people in Ireland and what do you intend to do about them?:

Climate change is an obvious and huge one – and I intend to do everything I can to put the pressure on both in Europe and at home for the most ambitious climate action possible. The time for talking is over – we need urgent action on climate change if young people are to have a safe and secure future.
Decades of neoliberalism capped by a decade of austerity have left millions of young people across the continent facing insecure employment, insecure housing, insecure futures. I have a track record of campaigning for workers’ rights, and for secure housing, and would have every intention of continuing to do so in Europe. We need an end to precarious employment and an end to the financialisation of housing.

What will you do to ensure funding opportunities for young people (e.g. Erasmus and Youth Employment Initiative) is increased in the next Multi-annual Financial Framework?:

The 2021-2027 MFF proposes a shocking increase in the funding to be given to security, defence, and border control. A new Migration and Border Management proposal would ring-fence and significantly increase by 207% spending on migration and border security. Spending on the European Defence Fund – itself newly funded in the last few years by the EU budget – will increase twenty-fold. While the proposed increase to the Erasmus programme is welcome for the new MFF, under the current proposals the programme will see nothing like the massive increases going to security and defence. This is outrageous, and I would certainly push to have defence funding which will make the continent more dangerous for its citizens diverted back to good and productive uses like Erasmus and the Youth Employment Initiative. For the 2021-2027 MFF the Youth Employment Initiative has been subsumed into the ESF+ fund, and it’s not clear how much has been ringfenced for it – or if any has been ringfenced. It would be crucial to ensure that specific funds are secured for it, and that it’s given the priority it needs.