"I hope that everybody elected to City Hall has both the city and their ward at the heart of all they do, when you're elected you're elected by the people and you put them first."
This is the view of Cllr Terry O'Flaherty, who was speaking to the Galway Advertiser in the Westside Community Centre this afternoon (Saturday May 24 ), where she is set to become the first candidate elected to the new council and to be the poll topper in Galway City East.
With tallies showing Cllr O'Flaherty on 20 per cent, six per cent above the required quota, the former Mayor could afford to relax and take the early congratulations.
"I didn't expect to be in so early," she said. "I normally don't come in until about six or seven o'clock. It's fantastic to know that I will be keeping my seat in City Hall. I was blessed with a fantastic and dedicated team of canvassers, and I would like to dedicated this win to my parents, but especially my mother Bridie, who was such a mentor and role model to me."
In Westside, Cllr O'Flaherty was surrounded by supporters wearing St Patrick's Blue T-shirts, which bore the legend: 'I'm backing Terry.'
"I wear a different jacket for each election and this time I had a royal blue one," she says. "My sister had the idea about the T-shirts. It was great. If I was at the door talking to someone on the canvass, and the team went ahead of me, I could still see where they were going."
When the new council meets for the first time in June, it will be a very different entity to what went before. There will be 18 seats instead of 15; the number of Independents will have increased bit these range politcially from the hard-Left to the centre-Right; Sinn Féin will have a presence; but Labour will have lost it's position as the biggest party in the council. What kind of council, could we be looking at?
"It's hard to know how it will all pan out, but I think it could be quite a good combination," says Cllr O'Flaherty. "We just have to wait and see how it works out. It will be an exciting time though, the city is expanding, we have multiple-nationalities living here now, and we are working to make Galway the City of Culture 2020."
For Cllr O'Flaherty, one of her main priorities will be tackling the continual problem of accomodation and the housing waiting list.
"We need to build more local authority houses," she declares. "We also have a situation where landlords are not giving rent allowance recipts to tenants which means they cannot claim rent allowance. That is something we have to tackle."
The re-elected councillor also wants to see the issue of horses in the city microchipped.
"Horses on the east side of the city are a huge problem," she says. "Unless we get such horses microchipped it will be difficult to make owners take responsibility for them."
Cllr O'Flaherty is also determined to see Ballyloughane Beach get Blue Flag status.
