Raising the standard in South Tipp

Your father, Michael, has been a republican activist all his life – is this where your own commitment comes from?
My father was very involved in republicanism right back to the early 1970s and politics has always featured in our household.  Himself and Marcus Fogarty were main faces of Sinn Féin in Cashel over the past 30 years.
Our house was frequently raided by the Special Branch. I remember as a young fella of about four or five being turned out of the house on more than one occasion at night-time. My father was arrested a number of times for minor matters like selling Easter Lilies without a permit and public order offences at commemorations and the like.
He was involved in republicanism before I was born and came from a republican family. But then Tipperary has been a republican county since the time of the Fenians. You can go back to 1848 to the Fenian uprising in Ballingary – the first time the Tricolour was raised in Ireland.  It was known as the ‘Potato Garden Uprising’ because it occurred during the Famine. It failed mostly because people were hungry and not in any great condition to fight even if they had the strength against such a powerful enemy.

How is Sinn Féin developing in South Tipp?
We’ve about 25 members in the local cumann.
My father took a seat on Cashel Town Council in 1985, lost it in 1999 even though he increased his vote, and regained the seat in 2004.
Prior to the 2004 local elections, we had the one councillor – Liam Walsh in Carrick on Suir – but then we rose to four: Séamie Morris and David Doran in North Tipp and my father and Liam Walsh here in the South Riding.
We’ve increased our vote at every election we contested and we’re confident that after the 2009 elections Sinn Féin will have people elected on every single town council in Tipperary and maybe one or two on the county councils.

You stood for the local elections in 2004 and now you’re the Sinn Féin general election candidate – how do you rate your chances?
I stood in the locals in 2004. I didn’t get elected but we improved our vote and I’m very confident we’ll improve it very significantly again this time round. The response has been good on the canvass and we’ve got an awful lot of well-wishers.
In the general election it’s a three-seater. There’s one Fianna Fáil, one Fine Gael and an Independent.
A lot of the votes going to the Independent candidate would be from people who are close to us politically. We’re hoping that those people will see that giving their Number 1 votes to Sinn Féin will have a greater impact on whoever is in government, especially with more Sinn Féin TDs expected to be in Leinster House.

What are the issues for South Tipperary?
The biggest issue here now is housing and the very high prices involved, especially prohibitive for first-time buyers who can end up tied to 30-year or 40-year mortgages, living in debt and exposed to increased interest rates.
As in other parts of the country, the state of the health services is a big worry for many families, for people of all ages.
Cashel Hospital closed down at the start of the year and all its A&E services were moved to Clonmel. In places like here in Cashel or Emily we’re a long way from Clonmel. Tipperary is the biggest inland county, so long distances are involved and the hospitals are in Nenagh in North Tipperary and Clonmel which is in the far south of the county – there’s a very long way in between. And there’s a fear here that the services will eventually be moved from Clonmel to Waterford and that we’ll be left with no major hospital services in South Tipp at all.
Another issue is crime and public safety. People don’t feel safe in their homes anymore. All the old Garda stations in the villages have been closed down and the Garda station in Cashel closes at five o’clock in the evening. They must think that criminals work from nine to five! It’s not major crime; it’s what I would call nuisance crime – general anti-social behaviour. The centre of Cashel town is the oldest part of the town and the residents there are largely elderly and it’s right there where the anti-social behaviour goes on.

How successful to date has Sinn Féin been in terms of addressing such issues?
We’ve had results for sure, say for instance in relation to addressing problems around planning.
A host of new housing developments have sprung up all over the town but without adequate, proper services put into them. The council isn’t taking care of water or rubbish services, for instance.
We had a protest at Oliver Plunkett Park – the part of Cashel where I was brought up – last Thursday.
Permission had been given for a new development to be built next to Oliver Plunkett Park but the guy behind it didn’t want to use his own land to build a roadway into it. He managed to get permission to use council-owned ground to build the road. We had been given assurances from An Bord Pleanála that this wouldn’t happen but then last week the developer came up and opened a roadway into the new development and started bringing up big trucks of gravel and rocks through the park to service his construction work.
So on Thursday we went up and blockaded the road. I showed the letter I’d received from An Bord Pleanála to council reps who came up to the protest to oppose our action. Finally, we got the developer to lock up the site until we’re happy that every single planning condition is being adhered to on the site. Sinn Féin in Cashel has taken the lead on this one. Direct action works.

Electioneering – a burden or a buzz?
I enjoy the whole election thing, especially the canvassing. I love meeting people and finding ways to address their problems. I’m interested in politics – I suppose the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree as they say, though I think I’d have become politically active even without my father’s influence.
I’ve already been doing the work of an elected rep and I spend a few hours every evening making and answering calls in relation to constituency issues and I thoroughly enjoy it.
I’m looking forward to doing it full-time as the Sinn Féin TD for Tipperary South.