Welcome from Duncan Russell!

Welcome to my new blog which will follow my progress as the Green Party candidate for the Thomastown electoral area in the Local Election campaign.  Please email me if you would like to discuss any local issues.

Preparing for Kilkenny’s Future

If Kilkenny is going to flourish into the future, we need to prepare and plan carefully. The Green Parties “Green New Deal “will be providing new jobs for the region in the renewable energy sector as well as in agriculture, tourism and through the home insulation scheme. We need to support our many small businesses which are the back bone of employment in Kilkenny, and work to secure new businesses into the area.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The County Council will have a major role in this; it needs to identify sectors of industry that we need to promote and the sectors that will decline. The Council needs to relook at sections of the County Development Plan, and The Strategy for Economic, Social and Cultural Development, which were written on the bases of previous economic and population growth, it needs bring the plan up to date for the present circumstances,  the county development board needs to be strengthened, or consider a new county development forum to bring together the Transport, Education, Business sectors with the Enterprise Board, Councillors, Local Authority, and Enterprise Ireland. This group, would meet regularly and concentrate solely on a strategy to identify the infrastructure, education and other needs of Kilkenny, to provide jobs though creating and attracting business’s and industry to the region.

Safe Routes to School

It should be the right of every school child to have a safe route to cycle or walk to school. This should be enabled by providing cycle lanes, pedestrian crossings and traffic calming. This is not only essential for safety, but reduces traffic congestion and increases the health of our children.

St. Mary’s Thomastown’s new national school, which opened this year, is having its traffic measures carried out two terms after opening, this is unacceptable, the traffic measures should have been addressed while the school was being built. I am currently supporting the building of a crossing on the N9 with speed ramps and safety signage at Maudlin Court once the estate is finally signed over to the council.

Cycling Training for Schools

I will be calling for a cycling training scheme in schools, where a road safety officer from the Garda’s goes into national schools to teach the children about road safety. This also means that the first meeting children have with the Garda’s is a positive one.

Buy Local

It is important to buy local and keep money circulating within the local community, help to protect all of our jobs and wealth.  Remember that if you buy aboard the tax goes aboard, therefore there is less money for investment in enterprise, health services, and education in the Republic, it will mean either cuts in services or raises in taxation. I would not call it unpatriotic, but self preservation.

In Kilkenny, we are lucky to have the finest array of artisan producers in the country, from crafts and arts to food. I support initiatives that can help Kilkenny’s small businesses for instance, the concept of 50 mile meals where restaurants source all the ingredients from within a 50 mile radius. I also encourage Kilkenny’s Hotels and public amenities to use our local craft and art. It makes sense to buy local.

I strongly support any initiative that will encourage and foster SME s (small/ medium enterprise) in the County.

Computers for Schools

Computers for Schools

I am working on a project to reuse computers from local firms and direct them to local national schools. Companies are upgrading their computers continuously to the highest spec. Their old computers are perfectly adequate for people who don’t need to run the latest programmes, our national schools would provide a very good homes for such computers.

New Faces with New Ideas

We need new faces with new ideas. With the current economic difficulties, the international banking crisis, the recession, which has effected Ireland more than most due to the over reliance on the building sector, we need forward thinkers. We need to put fresh people into the council who aren’t going to just carry on doing what they have normally done for years.  As stated by the Economist Magazine, “some people think that the recession will blow over like a storm, but this is not meteorological, it is geological things have fundamentally changed.” This is why we need people in the council who understand the need to change the way we do things, and who are able and willing to generate and embrace fresh ideas.

Allotments arrive in Paulstown.

On Thursday 23^rd April the first people signed up for their allotments in Paulstown. A meeting was held in the Shamrock Bar in Paulstown, where the Paulstown Allotment group was formally set up. I  have been  holding a number of meetings setting up the group and organising the site which the Copes at Shankil Castle have kindly provided. At this meeting the group nominated Chairman Paddy Martin, Secretary Loretta Bentick, and Treasurer Paul Mcshane. The site has now been ploughed and rotavated, on Saturday 9th May the plots were allocated to the members, and planting has started.

There are still a number of allotments still available therefore anyone wanting one should leave a message on this blog, or drop me an e mail. Each plot is 6m x 8m in size; the cost will be €170 per year, ending in December, and €120 for the first year. There is a joining fee of between €30-€40, depending on the initial number of people joining, which will cover the set up costs. The site is located just inside the main gate of Shankil Castle; the Copes of Shankil Castle have kindly provided the land for the allotments.

Allotments are a good way of producing fresh, organic, cheap food, with low food miles. The best food, from the perspective of taste, health and the environment, is that produced organically from local sources of which allotment are the most local. They also can create a good strong community, and build long lasting friendships within the members of such a group.

For every one unit of energy we get from standard, intensively, produced food, ten units of fossil fuels has gone into its production. So allotments and locally produced food is a very important, to decrease our use of fossil fuels, and tackle the twin problems of peaking production of oil and gas, and climate change.