Inishowen-based businessman and former presidential candidate Peter Casey is set to join the Rural Independent Group.
The group includes a number of TDs including Mattie McGrath and Michael Collins, also consists of brothers Michael and Danny Healy-Rae, Carol Nolan (formerly of Sinn Féin), and Richard O’Donoghue, a Limerick City Independent.
The group’s leader, Mr McGrath, confirmed it met with Casey with a view to forming a new political movement.
Casey finished second to President Michael D Higgins in the last contest for the Áras in 2018 with nearly a quarter of the vote (23.3pc).
Four other candidates were left trailing – Seán Gallagher, Liadh Ní Riada (Sinn Féin), Joan Freeman and Gavin Duffy.
He confirmed a Zoom meeting was held with TDs on Friday, July 7, after being contacted abroad by Independent.ie
He said: “I am on a golf course at the moment. I will call you back.”
Mattie McGrath confirmed they had met with Casey.
He said: “In answer to your query, I did have a meeting this morning with Peter Casey, Deputy Michael Collins and others.
“This is actually the second meeting following a number of calls discussing our mutual desire to form a new movement or organisation to give a proper and more effective representation to the public at large.
“We discussed a broad range of topics affecting our country and its people, from health to homelessness, to the demise of our fishing industry and rural broadband. We also discussed the many ongoing scandals such as RTÉ, and the delay to the National Children’s Hospital, as well as the lack of infrastructure outside Dublin and the sustained attack on our agricultural industry among many others.”
The online meetings follow a number of encounters with other “like-minded people”, he said.
These comprised both politicians “and ordinary men and women who are yearning for a new vision for our country and the governing of same”.
