The Farmers’ Alliance party, which describes itself as a “grassroots movement of farmers and citizens from rural and urban locations” has been registered to stand candidates in elections.
The Electoral Commission today (Friday, January 12) confirmed that its chief executive has “given notice of his intention to approve an application by the Farmers’ Alliance party to become a registered political party eligible to stand candidates in Ireland’s Dáil, local and European Parliament elections”.
The chief executive of the Electoral Commission, Art O’Leary, who is Ireland’s registrar of political parties, also detailed that his decision “will become effective after a 21 day appeal period, or the outcome of any such appeal”.
The formal notification has been published today in the official Irish State gazette, Iris Oifigiúil.
The Electoral Commission has outlined that if the Farmers’ Alliance is registered it will become the 29th political party to be listed on the current register of political parties.
Farmers’ Alliance
According to the party it was founded as a Facebook group by Donegal sheep farmer, Liam McLaughlin, which it claims “quickly grew to over 20,000 members”.
The co-founder of the Farmers’ Alliance is Helen O Sullivan, a suckler farmer from west Cork.
She has repeatedly highlighted that she feels “there is a lot of animosity” towards the farming community in relation to climate change.
O’Sullivan previously said: “Even though we are the most sustainable producers of nutrient dense food globally we are being labelled as environmental terrorists.
“There is a huge divide between rural and urban dwellers because of this.”
The party’s headquarters is registered as Ballyargus, Redcastle, Co. Donegal.
It states on its website that its objective is to “give a collective voice to farmers, fishermen and rural communities”.
“We are currently interviewing candidates across the country to run in the upcoming local and EU elections and we intend to contest the national election whenever it is called,” the party has said.