A picture tells a thousand words-See the pledge videos here

The Labour Party has really adapted to this whole blogging stuff, and here you see how we're now using Youtube to spread our message. This is my first venture into putting video clips on my site, so here goes. The point of these two video clips is to higlight two of Pat Rabbitte and my pledges to you on the key things we will deliver if you elect us as part of the Government for change. To those of you without broadband in Kilkenny, my apologies if you can't access these.

Marking Seamus Pattison's Retirement

In the coming week, we will see the dissolution of the government and an election called. For many of us this means the campaign to win a seat in the next Dáil, enters it final stages. However in Carlow / Kilkenny we are also marking the retirement after 46 years of Seamus Pattison.

Seamus has served both the Labour Party and people of Carlow / Kilkenny with great honour and dignity over these years. It is a credit to him that he was elected continually over many elections and through good and bad times for the Labour Party. I am proud to have worked on many of his campaigns and we had many long nights waiting for results to come in, but no matter what Seamus always pulled through.

It is only fitting that we thank Seamus and I personally am proud to be running as part of a strong team on behalf of the Labour Party to retain Seamus' seat and work for the people of Carlow / Kilkenny as he has done for many years.

It is popular now for varying vested interests to say that the people in each county should only vote and transfer to candidates living within their own counties. However Seamus is proof, if proof is needed, that it is the calibre of the person elected and not where they live that is important.

Seamus, thanks for the good years and I am grateful to you for the help and advice you have given so far in my campaign.

Election Bill Board's

Thanks to the people who have complimented us on our bill boards. They have been very effective in raising our profiles across both counties. The fact that the person putting up the posters for our ad agency made a mistake and put one of my bill boards up in Carlow and one of Jim's bill boards up in Kilkenny has been fun as well. It is amazing the conspiracy theories that this has caused. I have enjoyed listening to people explain to me that they had it on "good information" that this was a secret Labour Party strategy to show favour for one candidate over another. One of the local newspaper reporters was printing this as fact this week. I now know what the expression savaged by a dead sheep feels like.

If we had known the mistake the guys made was going to cause so much fun, we would have had all the bill broads put up in the wrong places. Just goes to show that the truth should never stand in the way of a good story.

Services on ADHD and Autism Collapse in Kilkenny

Following a request from myself , to Liz McManus TD., our Spokesperson
for Health & Children, The Department of Health has now requested a Health Services Executive (HSE) investigation into the collapse of ADHD and Autism services in Kilkenny.

My question raised by Liz , “To ask the Minister for Health & Children when she will institute an inquiry into the collapse of child and adolescent psychiatry service in Carlow and Kilkenny; the reason the Health Service Executive has not advertised for permanent replacement posts for the two retired child psychiatrists; the emergency plans her Department is considering with the HSE south to immediately install the full range of medical and other professional services for ADHD and autism patients and their families; and if she will make a statement on the matter.”

In a written reply to Liz McManus TD from the Minister for State said ‘My Department has requested the Parliamentary Affairs Division of the Executive to arrange to have the matter investigated and have a reply issued directly to the Deputy’.

From meeting families throughout Kilkenny, who's children have ADHD and Autism, I know that the services they need are sadly lacking. Personally, I am only to glad to raise the matter for the families who show great love and affection for their children and are let down by the state due to lack of services to support the care needed to help these hard working families.

Would you post a letter in this

Would you post a letter in this post box, by the looks of this box it would seem to be out of commission. However it is the post box serving one of the busy areas in Kilkenny City. After contacing An Post, I have received a positive response from An Post following my request for improved maintenance of letterboxes throughout Kilkenny and Carlow. In a letter from the Leinster Area Operations Manager in Naas, I have been assured that painting and replacement of nameplates will be undertaken 'early in 2007'

It is unacceptable practice for the postal service to allow its equipment to deteriorate to its present state. We are entitled to be assured of the integrity of the mail service, in what claims to be a leading country in the communication age.

Health Survey

Over the weekend Seamus Pattison and I took part in the local launch of the Labour Party’s health survey. Nationally Labour is distributing 52,000 questionnaires to households asking for peoples’ opinions and experience of our health system. Locally Labour members are distributing 5,000 leaflets to homes across the electoral areas in Carlow / Kilkenny. In Kilkenny I want to personally thank my council colleagues, Seán Ó hArgáin, Marie Fitzpatrick, Maurice Shortall, Anne Phelan and Tomas Breathnach for organising the questionnaires to be delivered in their local area. People will tell you that no one is interested in politics any more, well to see Labour members braving the elements to hand deliver 5,000 surveys to homes across Carlow / Kilkenny proves otherwise.

It was also great to launch the surveys with Seamus Pattison, Seamus has given 45 years strong and loyal service to the public in this constituency and I am proud that he is helping and advising me in my campaign, to also offer the same level of service to hard working families across both counties.

http://www.labour.ie/policy/listing/20060424121433.html

Time for the government to admit their mistake.

Spent Saturday back on the canvas, which was my first day back after the holidays. My fellow Labour Councillor Anne Phelan joined me on the canvas in the village of Goresbridge. Goresbridge is within the local election area which both Anne and I represent. We both take pride in the fact that the Labour Party has the highest number of councillors in this area.

The main issue on the doors steps in Goresbridge was the closure of the local secondary school, St. Brigid's, a few years back. The local parents to their credit ran a very positive campaign to save the school and are now being proven correct in the fact that the school was needed. The schools in the surrounding areas are reaching full capacity and there is a need to cater for the increase numbers over the next few years. I am glad to say that both Anne and I were very strong in support for keeping the school open. However the Department of Education and government TD’s from the area did not listen to the people, invest in the school and keep it open.

Frankly, to this day I cannot see any sense in closing a great school like St. Brigid’s. It is quite clear to me as well as everyone in the local area that a school now needs to be rebuilt in Goresbridge. Needless to say government TD’s will be falling over each other offering to lobby on the matter closer to the election.

It is time for the government and the department to admit they were wrong and start the plans to reopen the school; of course they will in the process waste millions replacing the school they closed in the first place. Not that wasting hard working families tax money matters to this government, wasting money is something they are very good at.

My New Years Resolution

Well the festive season is over and we now face into the election some five or six months away. From here on in it is back to campaigning hard to make sure Carlow / Kilkenny has strong representation by a Labour Party T.D. after the next election.

On a non political point, we all have made New Year resolutions and I am going to share with you one of mine. The resolution is to buy more “Fair Trade” products in 2007 and help support ethical business in the developing world. The Fair Trade organisations are doing excellent work supporting fair prices to local independent producers in developing countries. As the saying goes “a help up not a hand out” and Kilkenny City can be proud in the fact that it is leading the way by becoming a Fair Trade City.

I would urge everyone to support Fair Trade by looking for their symbol when shopping and lend your support to prove that ethical business in the developing world can be a success. For more information on finding Fair Trade products the website address is www.fairtrade.ie. Particularly, I would ask the local farm families within Carlow / Kilkenny to support their colleagues in developing countries to make a liveable wage from their farms.

A happy New Year to you all and see you all on the door steps over the next few months.

A fair deal for all

Early last year when I was Chairman of the 883 member Association of County & City Councils, I led a campaign to correct an unfair denial of rights for Councillors for their contribution to public service prior to 2000. Our Association’s attempted since that year to correct an unfair anomaly continued to be thwarted by the powers that be. However, Minister Dick Roche announced last week that he has now accepted the case and decided to amend the regulation of 2000.

I’m a great believer in giving credit where credit is due and congratulate Mr. Roche, for his decision. This was a particularly complex matter, which obliged me to present many formal submissions to the Minister, his Department Officials, and even informally to the Taoiseach.

One of the more pleasant features of the issue was when I had the opportunity to address the Congress of Local & Regional Authorities, (CLRAE) in Strasbourg, on this matter to seek its influence and support in our negotiations with the Irish Government. I have many dear friends in the CLRAE, which were made during my term there representing Irish Local Government, and as CLRAE Chairman of the Socialist Group in the period 1995 to 1999.

Local councillors have since the foundation of the state being a corner stone to building our successful democracy and I take pride in leading the success of a campaign to make sure all members have finally got fair and equal recognition for their work.

“Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime"

Over the last few weeks, we all have become too familiar with news stories about people murdered and shooting on our streets. Here in Kilkenny City, the stark reality of murder came home to us all, with the killing of Alan Cunniffe recently. Now I am not going to go off on a political rant attacking the government, for all political groups want to see crime disappear. What I am going to explain is how I think we should act, in what is a national crisis. Let me be clear, I do not use the term national crisis lightly, but that is what we face currently. To see a young man murdered at work merely for being in the wrong place shows us that no one is safe from these thugs.

It is my firm belief that we need to take a twin track approach on this crisis, to steal a sound bite from Tony Blair, we need to be “Tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime”. Now everybody wants criminals locked up for long jail terms and I fully agree with that. However at that stage it is too late, they have already committed the crime and there are already victims. We need to be creating a situation where young people are attracted to play a full part in their local community.

We need firstly to get tough on crime, recruiting more members of the guards is a start. The guards need to be properly resourced with increased spending on specialised units targeting these criminal gangs. If we look at the US model, where the FBI target Mafia gangs, we can see the success of this approach. Here in Ireland with militant nationalist groups like the PIRA and the dissident groups, the Special Branch and Military Intelligence have kept these groups in check. The government brought in “The Offences Against The State Act” to tackle militant groups, under which if a Superintendent states a person is a member of an illegal group this can be used as evidence to convict that person. Criminal gangs now offer the same level of threat to ordinary citizens as the terror gangs and must face the same laws and the same level of effort to put them out of business. We also need to increase resources for the Criminal Assets Bureau, to take the ill-gotten riches off these thugs. In short the government needs to put the criminal gangs out of business, if this means new laws or more money so be it.

Merely getting tough on crime is not enough, we need to spend as much time and effort removing the conditions where young people get involved in crime in the first place. We need to start in the school and in primary schools at that. As communities, schools are vital to all our lives and this is where the focus must start. We need early intervention when children start falling behind in school. Schools, particularly in under privileged areas need extra resource teachers and class room help to make sure all children get a proper education. It is not good enough that schools in poor areas have a lower rate of children attending third level, compared to schools in wealthier areas. Money should not be a factor in determining children’s chances of reaching their educational maximum. We need to invest in after school clubs to make sure that all children get properly looked after. Already in our communities we have people giving up their time and effort to help young people. Prime examples of this are the people who help run the local GAA, Soccer, Rugby clubs and varying other clubs. These citizens give to their communities by helping to run clubs for young people and we as a state do not give enough back in my view. Money spent funding underage teams and programmes for young people is money well spent. Our political system should be increasing spending on local community groups like these. We need more early intervention for young people involved in petty crime. If you stop people getting involved in petty crime, you reduce the chances of people going on to join criminal gangs. In short we need to spend as much on removing the causes of crime as on fighting crime. With this twin track approach, I believe that we all can make a real difference and stamp out this evil criminal menace that is eating away at the core of our nation.

I do not mean to have a rant on the subject, however this is something I feel very strongly about and it is something that crosses all social and political groupings. We all want to live in a peaceful and prosperous country and I personal do not intend sitting by and watching thugs take over.

http://www.labour.ie/policy/listing/1166537098827568.html Policing our Communities

http://www.labour.ie/policy/listing/20061113125431.html Fighting Poverty

Does it ever stop raining

Does it ever stop raining is a question I asked myself this week. Had a good start to the week canvassing, with Tomas Breathnach in South Kilkenny. We canvassed in Piltown and Fiddown and got a great reception on the doorsteps. Fiddown is a typical ‘New Ireland’ village, once a quiet rural village; it has seen four housing developments of varying sizes built over the last few years. A new housing development is just about to start as you drive into the village as well. It is great to see new life expanding into rural villages, however the services to support the population growth needs to keep up with the speed of development.

I was delighted to see CIE have carried out upgrade work on the rail line running through the village. Fiddown used to have a station, however while the beautiful station house is still there, the train no longer stops in the village.

Later in the week I travelled to Dublin, where the Labour Party were marking Seamus Pattison’s 45 years service as a sitting T.D. A fitting tribute to Seamus who is now the longest serving T.D. in the State. Once I get the pictures of the night, I will post some of them on the Blog.

During the week, Grennan College invited me to an evening engagement, which I enjoyed greatly. This was a benefit night organised by the domestic science students to raise much-needed funds for the Carlow/ Kilkenny homecare team. A wonderful four-course meal, well done to the students and from what I hear well done on the amount you raised for this worthy cause.

Had great plans for later in the week to take a day off the canvas trail to get a round of golf in at my local golf club, Mountain View. Election campaigning is bad for the old golf game and I have not had the chance to get many rounds in this year. Anyone who has seen my golf game will tell you that I could do with as many practice rounds as possible.
With the amount of rain and high winds, these plans went out the window and so did canvassing as well. All the same got the chance to catch up on some of my day-to-day business as a local councillor.

A walk on High Street

Pat Rabbitte paid a constituency visit to Carlow / Kilkenny on Monday to support the election campaign of both myself and my running mate Jim Townsend. The tour took in a visit to Kilkenny City, where we started the day with Pat, Seamus Pattison TD and myself being interviewed on KCLR, the local radio station.

The next stop on the tour was a meeting with Kilkenny Chamber of Commerce. This was a very interesting meeting and was I was glad to exchange ideas on what needs to be done to support local business. This is a discussion I intend returning to again soon with the Chamber. Also on the visit Pat, Jim and myself visited the local newspapers, where Pat conducted a series on interviews on local and national issues. We paid a visit to the local SIPTU office, where Denis and his staff made us very welcome, after which we got in some canvassing in Kilkenny City centre.

The Kilkenny leg of the visit ended with lunch in The Ground Floor coffee shop, which I would recommend for good coffee and nice food.

Time to end homelessness

It never ceases to amaze me that we still have people without homes in this Celtic Tiger economy. When the Simon community started in Ireland in the sixties, homeless people, and they were almost all men, were confined to the big cities, and mostly Dublin. I also saw my fair share of Irish people who fell on hard times in London, where I first became a Labour Party member. Indeed I should say congratulations to Emmet Stagg TD who has done so much to highlight the ongoing difficulties these people face in England, despite havcing contributed so much to our economy.

I am glad to support a new campaign on the issue called Make Room, a joint initiative of the Saint Vincent de Paul, Threshold, Simon and Focus Ireland who are demanding an end to homelessness by 2010. This will mean that homeless people in this city and county should be catered for, and that we should provide homes for those who need them. Public housing is always built when Labour are in Government, and ignored when we're not. It needs a Labour Minister in charge of this area again, before the spiralling waiting lsits for housing will finally be cleared, and biulders and developers made to liove up to their responsibilities once and for all.

Log on here to support the campaign.

A Fair Pension For All

Another interesting week on the election campaign trail, so far I have been out canvassing for six months. It would look like Bertie is going to call the election for some time in May, so I am nearly half way through the campaign.

Glad to see that the papers covered my support for the pension rights for farm women. For a country awash with money, the government does not seem to be focusing on real issues. The pension right's of farm women is not just a farming issue. It goes to heart of what we should stand for, both urban and rural, it is about citizens being protected and cared for by the state. To see hard working families having to campaign for basic pension rights in a booming economy, shows up the huge weakness we still have in social infrastructure.

On a brighter note, I was delighted to be present at the formal launch of the rural walkway from Kilkenny City to Inistoge. The walkway cuts through some of the most beautiful countryside in Carlow / Kilkenny. Seeing the countryside opened up in an agreed manner is good news for all and will most certainly boost tourist numbers in the area. Hopefully, this is only the start of such projects for Carlow / Kilkenny.

Sign the Breast Cancer Petition

I see my colleague in Waterford, Cllr. Séamus Ryan, has started a national online petition to seek a proper national screening service to prevent Breast Cancer. As you all know, we have a crazy level of mortality from this cancer which affects a huge number of Irish women. I fully support this online petition, and I encourage you to get everybody possible to sign on to this petition which will go to the Toiseach and the Minister for Health. You can access the petition here, or through Séamus's blog at http://seamusryan.blogspot.com.

Get online now and sign up.