Monthly Archives: September 2008

One giant step for me..

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It’s been quiet.. too quiet.. I’ll confess I’ve been too busy getting on with it to have time for reflection of late, been ploughing ahead on all sorts of issues and hardly come up for air but now it’s time to take a breather and take stock.

Was a busy enough Summer. Fitted in a family holiday which was fab and where lack of Irish media afforded me a substitute fascination with UK politics (the travails of New/Old Labour), sampled some fine Tuscan wines, braved Italian mountain passes in a hired Fiesta and took on (maybe too much) sun sheltering from 41 degree heat at times..

Closer to home, had no problems with sun exposure, whilst politically I was nominated by my home cumann (Sallins) to contest local elections next year (onto the Naas Ward of Kildare County Council). That covers Sallins, Kill, Kilteel, Caragh, Rathmore, Eadestown, Athgarvan and all of Naas town itself. So a big apple indeed and especially so for a first time candidate. But I’m honoured and exhilirated to be put forward and am relishing the challenges ahead.

I feel entering electoral politics is a logical progression from the work I’ve been doing the past few years. I’ve been active on so many different issues, with a variety of lobby/activist groups, and have become aqauinted with the whole process, “Going Native” shouldn’t be a huge culture shock for me. In fact it should represent a formalising of a role I’ve already performed for some time. If I get elected of course and only the people can decide that.

Much of my activity and outlook should be apparent to readers of this blog and of course I shall continue to update here into the election and beyond. I’ve also had a slight redesign and I hope people like the new look.

Sin é for now..

‘Art’ Attack

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Another thing I ended up looking into over the Summer was the issue of graffitti at several locations around Morrell road and around Oldtown. It was pretty prominent in a number of places and not quite in keeping with the landscaping scheme to say the least so I got onto Naas Town Council to see what could be done. The council have recently aquired a graffitti removal machine so this was a chance for it to get to work.

Inspecting the 'installation'

Long story short the graffitti was scrubbed off, the residents were happy, result. However I fear this could be a recurring theme. There is prevention of course where walls can have an anti-graffitti coating applied which would be worth considering for external public facades. I also think some form of outlet for the (presumably) kids that get up to this kind of thing in the first place would be useful too. A dedicated graffitti wall could work it has been successful elsewhere. While Monread is now sorted, graffitti has since cropped up again in Sallins along the Waterways entrance. Proving the cause must be tackled along with the symptom.

What are they at with the Sallins road!?

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There seems to have been work going on along the Sallins road all Summer. Starting in around the GAA complex and moving back and forth past Oldtown/Morrell up to the Monread roundabout and back.

It was inconvenient when the road was regularly blocked in either direction but you could live with that if the end result was positive or at best neutral. However in the case of the Sallins road construction, the road appeared to  be left in a worse state after the works than it was before! The rain over the Summer didn’t help matters but the workmanship appeared plain shoddy and there were bumps and humps all over the place. The problem was exacerbated when children returned to school in September and parents told me they were uncomfortable sending them walking in along the road and footpaths in the state they were in.

I got onto Kildare County Council about it all and worked with Cllr. Creevey to get a motion laid down at Naas Town Council on the issue. Basically I argued for a standard of finishing to be enforced onto the contractor before he left site. It’s standard practice in any contract engagement whether you’re building a new billing system or building a new footpath (or digging up an old one to relay utilities as in this case). Anyway the builders have returned to the scene of the crime since so it seems they’re now being held accountable. Proper order and about time.

Sunny side of the street

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Ambitious pan-continental energy project
The grid across the Med and beyond

(Disclaimer – this post was written on holidays and I’ve revived it now – could be a case of too much sun in every sense)
Finally another pan-European story that caught my eye this week (great thing about being on hols, having the international editions of papers like the Guardian and FT double bonus time to read them) concered some kind of cross-continental energy grid which would hook up everything from geo-thermal geyser power in Iceland to massive solar farms powered by the Saharan sun in North Africa. Apparently the proposal has been brought to the table quite recently by scientists and energy boffins and promises cheap, clean and renewable energy sources to supply all of Europes needs into the future. Brown and Sarkosy have given the thumbs up it seems and the next steps are an advanced pilot project. The grid idea is not particularly new but tapping into the Saharan solar potential would seem to be. I became a bit cynical reading the detail as it appears the European contributions to the project are really backup sources (such as the wind energy off UK and geo-thermal as mentioned) but that the Lions share comes from the dark continent. Just got me wondering was this some other new form of colonialism, our African friends “joining” the European community when they have something to give – a lot to give, in fact a lot more than the rest put together in this particular project, and I just hope they’re getting a decent quid pro quo out of it. Maybe I think too much..