Local Campaigning

I have campaigned in several local and general elections for Niall Ó Brolcháin, Kieran Cunnane and more recently Pauline O’Reilly. I believe that my record of community involvement gives me the organisational skills and local knowledge to represent green views in Galway City West.

I always got a kick out of campaigning in my own local area of Salthill and Knocknacarra where I would often be known on the doorstep by parents of kids I have coached, or recognised by cyclists who had participated in an event I organised. I want to use this local connection to make myself accessible as a councillor and to ensure the Green Party has a familiar local face.

N6 Bypass Oral Hearing

The N6 bypass is bad for Galway at so many levels. My presentation to An Bord Planala at the recent oral hearing focused in particular on the damage to the Dangan sports-ground area.

• Impact of air and noise pollution on sport areas.
• Impact on water pollution of the Corrib.
• Biodiversity loss.
• Mental health impact due to loss of a greenspace which is an escape for walkers and joggers.

Career

• Lead Software Engineer at Cisco Ltd.
• Previously designed lung ventilators for Galway MedTech companies.
• Published one book and many articles on design safety.

Hearts & Minds

Leading engineering projects has taught me that the technical challenges are often the easy part – the real challenges are always about the people. Green Party policies provide a lot of technical answers, but we need to manage trade-offs and resources as we advocate for green positions at council level. We need a team that can translate those policies into council decisions and later into votes from the general public. I believe that, alongside Cllr Martina O’Connor, I will be able to deliver on that agenda and make sure the critical policies are brought forward.

The Personal Bit

I live in Salthill with my wife Una and three children. Una has served on parents committees in Scoil Íde, Salerno and Coláiste Éinde and as a mosaic artist she has decorated a number of local sites including the garden of the Eglington direct provision centre.

My Green View

When I worked on designing lung ventilators, I did not think those devices would be front page news in an epidemic. When I worked on messaging and video conferencing systems for Cisco I did not realize that the whole world would be using those systems to work and socialise from home.

As I look at a world in lockdown, there are fleeting benefits in terms of pollution and wildlife. We need to use what we learned from this crisis to make long term changes to Galway.

• Cycling infrastructure and habits will change during lockdown – and the city needs to keep them after.
• Encouraging working from home will benefit traffic and family life in the long run.
• Increase emphasis on local food security –allotments should never have been subject to the lockdown.
• Reduced mowing/hedgerow trimming has benefitted biodiversity – we must make the case that this can be a long term policy.

Cycling in Galway

As a keen commuting cyclist, I want to reduce the car dependency of Galway. Electric cars are an expensive, short term, solution to pollution. Galway needs to reduce cars, not replace them, in order to lower pollution and to reclaim the time lost to gridlock. I want to live in a town where kids are safe cycling to school and their parents are healthier cycling to work.

As event director for the annual Western Lakes and Atlantic Challenge cycling event (www.wlac.ie) I took great satisfaction from the number of novice cyclists it attracted – my priority was to promote more recreational cycling in Galway which leads to more people choosing to commute by bike. The biggest contribution we can make to bike safety is to have more bikes on the road so that other road users expect them at all junctions.

Along the way this cycling event raised funds for Down Syndrome Galway and the Galway Rape Crisis Centre. The event is organised in cooperation with Galway Bay Cycling Club and Salthill Knocknacarra GAA club.