Austin Stack is to contest the upcoming General Election and bid for one of the three seats in the Laois constituency.
It has been confirmed that he will run for Fianna Fail after being added to the ticket by party headquarters.
At the end of October, a meeting in Laois decided that just Sean Fleming would run for the party in the upcoming election.
It had been felt that in the wake of the Brian Stanley controversy and the subsequent fallout in Sinn Féin that it presented an opportunity to add somebody to the ticket.
But the chance of winning a second seat in the reconfigured three-seat Laois constituency were considered very slim given how the party have been polling.
Nevertheless, Fianna Fail party HQ, as is their wont, have decided to go for a second candidate.
And that will be high-profile and long-time member of the party – Austin Stack.
Austin’s father Brian, a chief prison officer at Portlaoise Prison, was shot in the neck by members of the Provisional IRA and died after 18 months in hospital.
On March 25, 1983, Stack watched an Irish Amateur Boxing Association tournament in the National Stadium in Dublin.
He was returning to his parked car on South Circular Road when he was shot in the neck from behind.
The IRA initially denied involvement in the shooting. Austin Stack met with then Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams in 2013 as part of his campaign for information.
The IRA subsequently released a statement saying that its army council had conducted an internal investigation, determined that some of its members had carried out the shooting, and ‘disciplined’ the perpetrators for acting without authorisation from their IRA superiors.
Nobody has ever been charged in relation to the murder.
A retired senior prison officer, Austin Stack launched a new health and safety consultancy business in July – Stack Health and Safety.
Mr Stack joins a growing number of candidates throwing their hats into the ring in Laois from right across the political spectrum for the election on November 29.
The other candidates are Willie Aird (Fine Gael), Sean Fleming TD (Fianna Fáil), Mary Hand (Aontú), Maria McCormack (Sinn Féin), Ken Mooney (People Before Profit), Aisling Moran (Independent), Elaine Mullally (Independent), Rosie Palmer (Green Party) and Brian Stanley TD (Independent).
SEE ALSO – Mountrath man to contest General Election in Laois for People Before Profit
