Profile: Michael Harty (Ind)

When GP Michael Harty decided to run in the general election and was selected on the “No Doctor, No Village” slogan, his entry electrified the race. Disability campaigner and councillor Ann Norton was the other candidate in strong contention for that rising Independent vote, but Harty’s arrival “sucked up all the oxygen” as one analyst put it. His campaign for better State funding of rural GPs has capitalised on the bitterness about the decline of rural Ireland and a perceived lack of action to help small villages and towns recover. The 63-year-old has been a GP for 32 years in the village of Kilmihil, which has a population of 300 and he grew up in Limerick. A self-confessed political novice he was however active in lobbying the Government last year for the restoration of lost allowances for rural GPs. House calls are dying out in the cities and large towns but not in rural areas and he now covers an area from North Kerry to the Aran islands.