Maria Walsh and former jockey Nina Carberry nominated to run for Fine Gael in European elections

Fine Gael MEP Maria Walsh and former jockey Nina Carberry have been formally nominated to run for the party in the forthcoming European elections.

The two were nominated to run in the Midlands-North West constituency for the European Parliament at a convention in Athlone on Sunday.

Ms Walsh told the convention she sought re-election as someone with a proven track record as a sitting MEP. She said she had campaigned day in and day out to put mental health on the European political agenda. She said she was confident that there would soon be a first ever EU-wide mental health strategy which would seek to end the horrific loss of life from suicide.

Ms Walsh said she had also put focus on protecting Ireland’s tax regime and had voted against all EU legislation “that threatens our competitive advantage”.

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Ms Carberry said the ups downs of politics did not faze her. She said in 2005 as a 20-year-old jockey with her first ride at the Cheltenham Festival she became the first woman to win in 18 years. She said the next day she was unseated on the favourite at the start.

“That was the beginning of a lifelong lesson in perseverance.”

She said, if elected, she would like to see the voice of all the farmers in the region heard in Europe.

Ms Carberry also said she would like to provide more educational opportunities for young people through the development of a cross-European apprenticeship scheme.

At the weekend, another sitting Fine Gael MEP Colm Markey announced he would not be contesting this year’s European elections.

“I have informed Fine Gael that I will be withdrawing my name from the MEP selection convention for Midlands-North West constituency,” he said. “My focus will return to my home county of Louth and in particular Drogheda which has faced particular challenges in recent months and years.”

Speaking on Sunday, Fine Gael director of elections Simon Coveney said Mr Markey had a future in the party and suggested that he might run for the Dáil in the Louth constituency.

“I have spent a lot of time with Colm over the last number of weeks. We have talked through how we can give the party the best possible shot of winning two seats out of five in this huge constituency,” he said.

“Colm has been remarkably helpful through that process. His only objective was to try to make sure that whatever final decisions we made collectively this week would maximise our chances of winning two seats.”

“We have two really, really fantastic candidates here that I think can do that. And Colm felt it in the best interests of the party, that if he stood back, and in particular allowed Nina to really gain momentum along the east coast in this big constituency to try to counterbalance what, what Maria is already achieving on the West coast, that that we would give this party a real fighting chance of winning two seats.”

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