GE2016 Profile: Emmett Smith (Right2Change)

Age: 28

Marital Status: single

Priorities:

The current younger generation had nothing to do with the 2008 economic crisis, but we are still paying a heavy price. We face a future of deepening uncertainty. One-third of us have emigrated, and those that stayed are faced with an insecure jobs market, where unpaid internships and zero-hour contracts are increasingly becoming the norm.
The lack of decent part-time employment is also increasing the number of students dropping out for purely economic reasons. This generation also faces an unprecedented housing and homelessness crisis. Successive governments have failed to address the situation; less social housing has been built by this government than any government in the history of the state.
These pressures and anxieties have also created an unprecedented mental health and suicide crisis.
What we shouldn’t do is repeat past mistakes and return the parties of corruption and austerity that have betrayed us over and over again.
We need to demand decent housing for all, a reversal of cuts to health and education, an increase in the minimum wage, a reverse of the reductions in pensioners entitlements, to repeal the 8th amendment and to build a real recovery for the 99%.