Independent TD Mick Wallace has said he wants to “rock” Europe with his political other-half Clare Daly.
The pair decided at the last minute to run for the European Parliament and have high hopes to inject change if elected.
The Wexford TD told the Irish Mirror that he and Ms Daly thought long and hard about the move: “It wasn’t a case of changing our mind it was a case of making a decision and look it, we only made the decision at the last minute.
“It’s a hard call to make, first of all we don’t know if we’ll get elected and if we did we don’t know if it’s the right decision to be leaving the Dáil.
“Maybe we’ll be disappointed with it, maybe we will rock the place, I don’t know but if we didn’t give it a try we’ll never know.”
The controversial TD said if elected he would like to challenge and shake things up at EU level.
He said: “We think that we can shake Europe up and we think Europe does need a big shake.
“I do think it’s a bit undemocratic and that the Nice and Lisbon Treaty didn’t do the European structures any favours. It made it more neo-liberal and made it less democratic and we’d like to challenge that.
“We probably work best at committee level where the hard work gets done and less notice but if we manage to get elected and had the platform of being two TDs that aren’t afraid of hard work we’d like to think that we’d use our platform to good effect.
Both have now entered the election race with voting to take place on Friday, May 24th. A total of 59 candidates will contest the elections.
Ms Daly is contesting the Dublin constituency and Mr Wallace is declaring in Ireland South.
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If he got a chance to take one of the hot seats up for grabs Mr Wallace said he would fight hard for farmers.
He said: “I think 90% of farmers get left behind, I think that EU policy favours the top 10% best of farmers and neglects the other 90%.
“I think fishing has been seriously neglected, we obviously sold our fishing rights down the swanny years back and I do think a better deal has to be fought for our smaller fishermen especially the in-shore fishermen.
“I also think Ireland has become an incredibly expensive and difficult country for small businesses to operate.
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“I stand for what I stand for and if people want to know what it is, look at my records, look at what I’ve done in the Dáil the last eight years and judge for yourselves. People can take me or reject me on that basis.”
Meanwhile the 63-year-old said he believes Isis bride Lisa Smith who is currently in a refugee camp in Syria should be allowed home to Ireland.
He said: “If an Irish girl went out there and took a side that I wouldn’t have approved of she’s still an Irish citizen I wouldn’t be closing my door to her.”
