Eamonn McCann elected MLA for Foyle. Today he takes up his seat in the Assembly
HISTORY will be made today when a 73-year-old socialist activist takes his seat in the new Assembly.
Veteran campaigner and trade unionist Eamonn McCann, who has been trying for 47 years to get elected, upset the political applecart at the weekend when he robbed the SDLP of a third seat in Foyle.
Sinn Fein had parachuted Martin McGuinness into Foyle from Mid Ulster in the hope of taking a third seat.
But it was McCann who snatched the seat away after polling some 4,000 first preference votes as a People Before Profit candidate.
Speaking this morning on BBC Radio Foyle, McCann said he will be taking “the average industrial wage” and the rest will be put back into the party.
He will be joined on the benches by party colleague Gerry Carroll who topped the poll in west Belfast.
All 108 MLAs – including 29 new faces – will take up their seats this morning in the Assembly.
Negotiations will also get underway today between the five main parties for a new Programme for Government.
But the SDLP and UUP already believe the two political parties, DUP and Sinn Fein, already have a programme “pre-cooked”.
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