Libertas Ireland

Libertas Ireland was a minor, Eurosceptic political party in Ireland. It contended the 2009 European Parliament elections in Ireland under a common banner with Declan Ganley's Libertas.eu. It shared a headquarters with Libertas.euTh
CRO
entry for the Libertas Party was:
* Type: Company,
* Number: 463758
* Name: The Libertas Party Limited,
* Address: Moyne Park, Tuam, County Galway, Ireland
* Registered: 30 October 2008"Entry for the Libertas Party Limited"
, a
www.solocheck.ie

, a
www.ukdata.com
but was a national party in its own right for the purposes of Irish electoral law.

Formation

Rumours that Libertas would become a political party began as soon as the Lisbon I referendum rejected the Treaty of Lisbon,"Ganley plans to fight on in European elections"
Sunday Times, June 22, 2008 and attention eventually moved to whether Libertas would run candidates in Ireland.
, Irish Times, 13 December 2008 On 14 March 2009, Ganley held a press conference and announced that it would."Ganley launches European election bid"
, 15 March 2009 Libertas Ireland, (the Libertas national party in Ireland and a party in its own right) was founded on 29 April 2009, some months after the pan-European party was founded in 2008.

Personnel

2009 European Parliament elections

Candidates

Libertas fielded candidates in three European Parliament constituencies in Ireland. It did not intend to field a candidate in South because Libertas had close ties with Kathy Sinnott (IND/ EUD/ IND-DEM), an MEP for that constituency.

Campaign

At the launch of his party's 2009 European Parliament campaign, Declan Ganley encouraged voters to vote for Libertas as a protest against existing parties, said that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael were part of a political cartel and that opinion polls that put his party at 2 per cent in the polls disagreed with Libertas own polling. Ganley said that he would step down as party leader if he failed to be elected in the North–West constituency.

Simons criticised Proinsias De Rossa at the launch of the EU parliament campaign, saying that he had been in the parliament for fifteen years and would be seventy next year, but she denied she was discriminating against older people.

O'Malley said that Ireland should close its borders to workers from other EU countries while appearing on '' The Last Word'' on Today FM.East candidate seeks block on immigrants
, Brian Kavanagh, The Irish Times, 15 May 2009

Results

Ganley was not elected; he called for a recount in his constituency and, as a result, his official number of first preferences was reduced by 3,000 from 70,638 when it was discovered that some votes for Fiachra O'Luain has been mistakenly bundled with his. Neither Caroline Simons nor Raymond O'Malley were elected either. Kathy Sinnott also lost her seat.

European Parliament

Dissolution

In November 2009, the party was removed from the Register of Political Parties in Ireland. In June 2010, Ganley applied to the Companies Registration Office (CRO) to have the Libertas Party and the Libertas Foundation to be struck off voluntarily. The group had filed no accounts. As of 2010, the Libertas Institute remained active as a think-tank.

See also

*Jens-Peter Bonde
*2009 European Parliament election

Notes

References

{{Historic Irish parties

Ireland
Eurosceptic parties in Ireland
Political parties established in 2009
Political parties disestablished in 2009
Defunct political parties in the Republic of Ireland
2009 establishments in Ireland
2009 disestablishments in Ireland
Right-wing politics in Ireland