Constituency: Kildare North

The director of a grind school in Celbridge, Michael Beirne has twice previously ran as a candidate in local and general elections. Actively involved in his community, he is campaigning on issues such as reforming the health and education systems and empowering local communities. If elected Mr Beirne says he will worked towards a better quality of life for everyone, not just his constituents.

Leader of the Sinn Féin group in Kildare County Council until 2015, Reada Cronin (51) wants to see an to end of water charges and the property tax. A strong advocate for social justice, Cllr Cronin is a member of a number of council related groups, including the Local Traveller Accommodation Consultative Committee and the Local Rural Water Monitoring Committee.

A former member of the Labour Party, Gerard Dunne is running for the first-time as an Independent. An assistant supervisor at Kildare County Council, Mr Dunne ran unsuccessfully in the 2014 local elections, garnering 524 first preference votes. He is an active member of his local community.

Topping the poll in Kildare North in the 2011 general election, Bernard J. Durkan took almost 20pc of the vote to secure a seat in the Dáil. Originally from Swinford, the Mayo man was elected a TD for Kildare in 1981 but lost his seat the following year in February when the then Fine Gael–Labour Party coalition fell to a Fianna Fáil minority government. Following the defeat, Deputy Durkan was elected as a Senator by the Agricultural Panel. He regained his Dáil seat at the November 1982 general election. A notable achievement of the 70-year-old politician is that he was been re-elected in every subsequent election to date. During his 34 years in the Dáil Mr Durkan has held several Front Bench portfolios in Fine Gael, including Health, Food, Trade and Industry, Insurance, Overseas Development Aid and Human Rights, and Communications and Natural Resources. He served as Minister of State for Social Welfare from 1994 to 1997 and currently serves as Vice-Chairman of the Joint Oireachtas on Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade. In 2010, Mr Durkan was among four Fine Gael TDs who continued to claim their ministerial pensions despite a party pledge insisting that all sitting deputies would forego these payments while in office. He, along with the other Fine Gael TDs, said he was using the money for “chartable donations.”

Shane Fitzgerald is an entrepreneur and a former Leixlip Town councillor. During his ten years on the council, the Renua Ireland candidate served as a Chair for various committees, including environment, waste, arts heritage, tourism, and town improvement. Mr Fitzgerald has been involved in local Tidy Towns and Pride of Place Competition projects, and, for the past eleven years, has been the proprietor of Carraig Flowers, a family run business with branches in Dublin, Leixlip, Westport, and Maynooth.

Elected to Kildare County Council in 2014 and appointed Mayor of Naas in 2015, James Lawless (39) is one of two Fianna Fáil candidates campaigning in Kildare North. A recently trained barrister, Mr Lawless believes the constituency has been neglected since the last general election, and says that better transport and broadband services are needed throughout the region. The Kildare county councillor is chair of the Sallins Business Association.

Johnstown native Anthony Lawlor was first elected to Dáil Éireann in 2011 having served as an Independent County Councillor in Kildare from 1998 to 2004 and again from 2009 to 2011 as a member of Fine Gael. A former teacher turned agricultural worker, the 56-year-old chairs his party’s internal committee on European and Foreign Affairs. A member of the Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Lawlor cites tackling youth unemployment, part-time labour regulations and issues surrounding rent allowance as his priorities in the Dáil. A former President of Naas Rugby Club, he is an avid fan of Kildare GAA and Leinster rugby. He is the son of former Fine Gael Senator Patsy Lawlor.

As the People Before Profit candidate for Kildare North, Ashling Merriman (46) has been heavily involved in campaigning against austerity measures. This will be the first time that the activist has run in general election. A care attendant by profession, Ms Merriman says she wants to create a fairer Ireland by closing tax loopholes and increasing the corporate tax rate paid by multinationals. She is also supporter of her party’s position on using vacant NAMA properties to tackle the lack of social housing.

Joint founder of Ireland’s newest political party the Social Democrats, TD Catherine Murphy has served as a representative for Kildare North for several years. First elected as an Independent in a hotly contested by-election in 2005, the mother-of-two polled slightly fewer first-preference votes than Fianna Fáil's Áine Brady but was elected on the fifth count. She lost her seat however in the 2007 general election only to regain it again in 2011. On 15 July 2015, Ms Murphy launched the Social Democrats party along with former independent TD Stephen Donnelly and former Labour Party TD Róisín Shortall. The 62-year-old is herself a former Labour Party member having resigned in 2003 citing what she termed "destructive internal intrigues”. She is also a former member of the Workers Party and Democratic Left. Ms Murphy has campaigned on a number of social issues, including transport, local government, affordable housing and education, and has raised profile considerably by her use of Dáil privilege.

Green Party candidate Maebh Ní Fhalluin (35) is campaigning on reforming the health service to focus on primary and community care. An advocate for sustainable and renewable energy, she says that opportunities for job creation have been missed by not investing in clean technologies. Among her other interests while in office is to secure supply of social housing and affordable rented accommodation for the region.

The second of Fianna Fáil’s candidates in Kildare North, Frank O’Rourke was co-opted to Kildare County Council in 2012 and held on to the seat at the 2014 local elections. Originally from Leitrim, he views solving the homeless and housing crises as his top priorities. He is also calling for more resources to be focused on supporting the elderly and those with special needs.

A healthcare assistant based in Celbridge, Elizabeth O'Sullivan is a first-time general election candidate. She is running as an Independent voice for county Kildare.

Labour party chief whip Emmet Stagg (71) was first elected to Dáil Éireann in the 1987 general election for the Kildare constituency. He has served as his party’s spokesperson on a number of areas, including Agriculture and Social Welfare. Should he retain his seat in 2016, it will be his eighth successive general election. In the Fianna Fáil–Labour Party coalition formed after the 1992 election Deputy Stagg became a Minister of State with special responsibility for Housing and Urban Renewal. In 1995, he was appointed Minister of State at the Department of Transport, Energy and Communications in the newly formed Rainbow Coalition Government. A brother of Frank Stagg, an IRA prisoner who died on hunger strike in Britain in 1976, Mr Stagg is from Hollymount in County Mayo.

Kildare County Councillor Brendan Young says his2016 Dáil Éireann campaign is a fight for the interests of ordinary people. Mr Young opposes water charges, supports the repeal of the 8th amendment, and says that he is committed to restoring services that have been cut in recent years, especially in healthcare. Running as an Independent in the general election, he was elected as a councillor for Kildare in 2014.