Confident in Cork City

Cllr Jonathan O'Brien, Willie O'Regan, Roisin O'Sullivan, Jackie Connolly, Annette Spillane and Dermot O'Mahony

On the hillside overlooking Cork City, in last Sunday's beautiful afternoon sunshine, some of Sinn Féin's local election candidates, with local people and children, gathered for a barbeque with bouncy castles. There was a spirit of generosity, confidence, of ideals, of being together on the march to bring real change to local politics. A lot has happened in Cork over the past few years.

Jackie Connolly and Roisín O'Sullivan both have worked with groups supporting disabled people, in community health care. They talked of the ways people with disabilities are ignored, their chance to enjoy their life denied. "This is what we are going in to challenge," says Roisin.

"Having more women now in the party has changed things," says Jackie. "It has put more emphasis on equality and human rights, more of a culture of listening to people, people who have been ignored."

Roisín, a candidate in Passage West and Monkstown, who looks as if she is only a few years out of school, talks of how young people who have no chance of getting a house, setting up a home and a family, identify with someone who is in the same boat. "Young people are not looking for someone who'll talk down to them," she said. "There's 400 new houses built already in Monkstown, and 600 more to be built, and there is just one shop — that's it for community facilities. No community centre, no theatres, no cinemas, nothing.

"Young people, every night, sit on the wall outside of the shop, with nowhere to go. Then the older generation blames them for anti-social behaviour. They are blamed for everything, whereas the council should be to blame for providing no facilities in the plans. Young people are fed up with being blamed."

Jonathan O'Brien, who has a seat on Cork City Council, articulates what is different about Sinn Féin. "The other parties are about managing people, managing their lives. The city has to balance the books. The easiest way to do this is to manage people, not to listen to them, but to tell them what they'll have and not have.

"Our challenge is not to become integrated into their system but to challenge the way local government is implemented. We're the only party driven by values, social justice, equality, freedom. The other parties are driven by egos, greed, their need for power and the abuse of that power.

"They talk of consultation, but they don't listen. We don't want power for its own sake. We want to give power to the people. We want to give people the power to decide issues that affect them.

"Take service charges. People have no power to decide how this money is spent. We want them to be given the choice to recycle. We've only one bring centre in the city. We want one for every community of 5,000 or so, so they can choose to recycle stuff and choose not to have an incinerator.

"The key is to engage with communities whose rights are ignored. We need to create alliances, not just in the council but outside of it, to build for change."