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Constituencies
Carlow-Kilkenny
Conor Mac Liam

Conor Mac Liam

Solidarity

Incumbent : No

Main message to voters:

There is no recovery for ordinary people. While the richest 300 increased their wealth by 48%, we suffer continued austerity - water charges, low pay, a housing emergency, health services in crisis. I stand for communities to organise a fightback - with a boycott of the water charges to the fore!

Election history:

First stood in the 2011 General Election after my wife Susie Long died of cancer in 2007 - I campaigned against the two-tier nature of the health system. Then the local elections in May 2014 and the Carlow-Kilkenny bye-election in May 2015 when I made a boycott of water charges the main issue.

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General

WhichCandidate is an independent website that aims to provide information to voters on the policy views of election candidates and political parties.

It is developed by researchers at the Department of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Limerick, in cooperation with the web development company Careergro. WhichCandidate adheres to the website privacy policies of the University of Limerick. We fully respect an individual’s right to privacy and actively seek to preserve the privacy rights of those who share information with the us. Any personal information which is volunteered to us will be treated with the highest standards of security and confidentiality. This statement is not deemed to be a contractual undertaking.

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Frequenty Asked Questions

What is WhichCandidate?

WhichCandidate is a ‘voting advice application’ that allows voters to compare their own policy views with those of the candidates standing for election.

It aims to inform voters about the policy positions of candidates and to help voters to make a more informed voting decision.

How does it work?

A set of relevant policy issues are selected by the research team in advance of the election. Election candidates are contacted to complete a questionnaire on these issues. Each participating candidate is given a public profile on the website, incorporating their answers to the questionnaire.

Voters who visit the website are asked the same set of questions, and their answers are compared with the answers of the candidates. A customised results page is then presented to each user, containing a ranking of candidates ordered by how closely their answers match.

How is the ranking calculated?

Rankings of candidates are based on the ‘percentage match’ with the user. This is the percentage of issues on which the candidate has the same position as the user, out of all the issues on which the user expressed an opinion.

For example: a user expresses an opinion on 10 issues, and on 5 of those issues the user’s position is the same as Candidate X. In this case, the percentage match between the user and Candidate X is 50%.

Some issues are more important to me than others. Can this be taken into account?

You first select the issues that are important to you, and you are then presented with questions related to those issues. You will only be matched with candidates on those issues. In addition, if there are any specific questions that you are not interested in, you can simply select 'no opinion' and they will be excluded from calculation.

Some candidates appear to be missing

We endeavoured to contact all declared candidates. Some candidates have declined to share their policy views with us and are not featured on the website. If you would like to see more candidates from your area on the website, please urge them to contact us and complete the survey.

If you are a candidate and were not contacted by us, please let us know.

Is it independent?

WhichCandidate is not associated with any political party or election candidate. It is run by researchers at the Department of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Limerick. It is supported by funding from the Irish Research Council.

Who do I contact?

Any queries or feedback on WhichCandidate can be sent to Rory Costello at the Department of Politics and Public Administration, University of Limerick rory.costello@ul.ie