Luke McCann
Luke is a proud South Belfast man who attended Rathmore Grammar School and Queens University Belfast.
A playing member of St. Brigid’s GAC, Luke is involved with a number of local community and youth groups and has volunteered with Habitat for Humanity NI.
As an active Pro-Life campaigner, Luke believes a society should be judged on how it treats its most vulnerable members. It pains him that both the Sinn Fein and SDLP South Belfast MLA’s have recently voted for abortion up to birth for disabled babies, and also for censorship zones without any democratic mandate from the people. In fact, only 0.2% of respondents to the public consultation on censorship zones were in favour of them and over 70% of respondents were against abortion being imposed here by Westminster. Shockingly, both the Sinn Fein and SDLP leadership actively lobbied Westminster to undemocratically impose abortion in the North of Ireland. Luke will continue to fight for the right to life for all members of our society and actively lobby for more supports for vulnerable pregnant women and mothers.
An accountant and financial consultant by profession, Luke has a passion for economics and the economy. He laments the current reactive approach of those in government, which has led to an ever-worsening cost of living crisis; an inevitable consequence of the reckless monetary and fiscal policies taken during 2020/21. Many of our small businesses particularly within retail and hospitality have been forced to close. We are now in a very precarious situation with many families struggling to make ends meet resulting in a stark increase in families presenting as homeless.
Significant action needs to be taken to ensure business can prosper here, offering more jobs and internationally competitive salaries. SF/DUP clearly have no confidence in the people, and no ambition. We have the opportunity to reduce corporation tax and cut rates for small businesses, and we must use them. The established parties prefer we remain a handout-state, fearfully relying on the ever-decreasing block grant. Aontú are ambitious, we believe in self-determination and will be actively pushing to see the long promised corporation tax reduction realised, real and sustainable supports for indigenous business both large and small and a focused drive to attract more diverse FDI to NI. Luke will also be fighting to get a reduction on VAT and excise duty and will advocate for the full implementation of the NI protocol.
Another area that Luke is passionate about is our education system. He supports parental choice in education and finds it shameful that SF/SDLP would see Catholic schools discriminated against due to the Integrated Education Bill. This bill essentially blames Catholic and Protestant education for the divisions in the North and mandates integrated schools as the solution. As a party that believes in pluralism, diversity and parental choice, Aontú will be actively opposing this divisive agenda and will fight to ensure adequate funding for the Catholic, controlled and Irish medium education sectors.
