Interview: John D Walsh, Irish People Party

John D Walsh is The Irish People party's candidate in Waterford.

The candidate ran as a single-issue candidate in the last General Election on the topic of restoring the 8th amendment, this time, however, he has expanded his campaign beyond that issue.

Health and education are the top issues facing Waterford, he says. 

"Our population is getting older but there's a problem with our health service at the moment. People feel very aggrieved that it's not up to the standard that it was - and the same in education."

His third top issue is the economy, "We have to make sure there is an atmosphere of enterprise - of developing businesses - and small businesses are key to that."

Walsh's party is campaigning on the issue of family creation and support, but what is the party seeking to do, and for whom?

"A family," Walsh says, "is what we define as a mother, father and children - a normal family."

"What is happening in Hungary now, with the government there, where they look after primarily those families." 

He believes the Irish government should similarly give tax breaks for those who have multiple children, "to encourage people to get married and settle down as a family."

"I know there are other types of families as well," he says, "but I mean only the mother and the father can have children."

"Any family that has children would be what I call normal," he says, but the idea of a gay couple with children, however, Walsh said, "Well, I would have a problem there because the children aren't coming... they don't... Where are those children coming from? 

"They aren't produced by themselves as it were. Every child deserves a mother and father - that should be the way it should be." 

He said he does not consider that concept of a family to be exclusionary.

The Irish People party has aligned itself with the National Party and the Irish First Party under the banner of the 'National Alliance'. John D Walsh responded to the label of 'far right', which has been given to the parties.

"These things aren't defined. The right and left [political labels] come from the French Revolution. Those who sat on one side of the chair - they wanted to preserve what was there and those on the left wanted to change things. So I would be considered back about 25 years ago as 'middle of the road'.

"I would be considered 'in the centre', probably slightly over to the right but certainly not... people have ideas of far rights being neo-Nazis or things like that. There's nothing at all in that philosophy that I would agree with."

Asked whether the principles of the Irish People party could be racist, Walsh said: "Well, first of all, identifying people by their skin colour; I can remember back in the 60s, and 70s - a black person - you would never say he's black. You would say he's a Negro, that's his race. You wouldn't identify his colour but now it has totally reversed. If you say the word Negro, then you're racist you know."

"I believe in what Martin Luther King said that we should judge people by their character, not by their skin colour. We've got into identity politics, a lot of it is kind of lazy pigeonholing people. You put them in a box that sums them up but that's totally unfair."

"So, what the Irish people are concerned about is mass, uncontrolled immigration. They're not against immigration."

WATCH: Full Interview Here