Phil Kennedy from Bohermore has declared she will run for a seat in the 2014 Local Elections to be held next May.
Ms Kennedy will run as an Independent, although it was understood she was approached by the Labour Party as well. She will contest Galway City Central ward, where Bohermore is located. However no electoral ward is fixed at the moment with the local electoral boundary committee to report to the Government soon.
Ms Kennedy is running on a platform of plain speaking ‘can do politics’, with an emphasis on strengthening a sense of community throughout the city.
“I want to get councillors talking properly,” she told the Galway Advertiser. “At meeting there is too much jargon with words like ‘protracted’, ‘procedures’, and ‘interconnectivity’. We need more direct and plain speaking.
“The use of the words ‘neighbourhoods’ and ‘estates’ is just a way of creating distinctions between so called ‘better areas’ and others,” she says. “All are neighbourhoods or communities. That’s just talking integration and practising segregation. Often talk of ‘representing the city mean only businesses people. We need to look broader than that.
She also feels there is a lack of connection between local communities and City Hall.
“I believe if we get things right in the neighbourhoods you get it right everywhere else. We need to involve people more so they don’t see City Hall as either the problem of just there for solutions, but feel they have the power to suggest solutions to issues to the council itself.
