As campaigning is gearing up for the election on Friday, 26th February 2016, MS Ireland has produced a leaflet to help people affected by MS to get involved and make the most of the campaign. Elections are an important opportunity for people with MS to make their voices heard and share their concerns with public representatives.
The leaflet contains six suggested ‘doorstep questions’ for candidates, which are based on the themes in our 2016 advocacy statement. There is also space on the leaflet for you to write what is most important to YOU, so that you can just hand it over to the candidates if you wish. The leaflet also contains some key statistics about the numbers of people with MS in each region of the country – candidates are always interested to know details about their own area.
There is also a ‘pledge’ for candidates to sign, asking them to pledge to support the 9,000 people in Ireland living with MS if they are elected. If you are successful in getting a candidate to sign the pledge, please let us know. You can email us at harrietd@ms-society.ie or send the pledge into our national office, 80 Northumberland Road, Dublin 4 or your local regional office. This will help us to make a list of potential political allies after the election, and we can contact them to follow up and see if they will honour the pledge.
Printed copies will also be available from MS Ireland’s regional offices.
MS Ireland also supports the election manifestos of the following organisations:
- Disability Federation of Ireland
- Neurological Alliance of Ireland
- Medical Research Charities Group
- Family Carers Ireland
Further reading