In an interview in the new issue Hot Press, Senator Shane Ross declares, “If I am elected, I will form a new political party. But I will not do that until I get elected. There are approximately 150 independents running in the election. It is too difficult, in the time available, to see how many are sufficiently close to work with. The formation of the party will be on the basis of agreed principles to which everyone will have to sign up.”

Asked if he has a name for the political party he says, “I think a name like “New Democrats” would be appropriate.”

Ross tells Hot Press that he was asked to run for Fine Gael and turned them down.

“I don’t think Fine Gael can be reformed,” he explains. “I think the political parties, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour, are all very much embedded in the kind of establishment mentality, which is exactly that sort of oligarchy which I’ve been fighting against for the last ten or fifteen years.”

Ross is dismissive of Enda Kenny, who he describes as a mirror image of the former Taoiseach, Brian Cowen. “Well, I think that he’s being held back from the media for reasons which are obviously being reasonably effective. He’s got qualities which are good within the party, but don’t appeal to the public."

On banks, Ross says this, “The banks have been nationalised, the government is in charge of who gets on the boards now – and they have been appointing their cronies to the boards of the banks already, as they have to the boards of FÁS and all these other places. How do you change it? They do it quite effectively in America. You make sure that all appointments to State agencies and State boards – and banks are included in that now – are made by an independent commission.”

He also argues strongly against Irish taxpayers having to take on the debts of Irish banks. “It’s immoral,” he states. “Why should Irish taxpayers have to pay European banks for their reckless lending?

Read this in full, as well as interviews with Gerry Adams, Ivana Bacik and Dylan Haskins, in the new issue of Hot Press, out now.