How would you help get more housing built in the city – especially social and affordable housing?
Since I have taken office in May 2019 we have seen a big emphasis on delivery of Social and Affordable Housing on our Council. Social housing we have seen triple the amount of units delivered locally versus the last 3 terms on DCC combined.
Affordable purchase for young people and families is important and we will see this for first time in many years on our council with Oscar Traynor Woods with 172 homes. Our council needs to prioritise delivery of affordable purchase in the coming term.
How would you help improve conditions in existing housing, both social and privately rented?
The Council are working hard to Retrofit existing social housing units to bring them up in standard. A bigger emphasis from the council to ensure sufficient resources are being invested in our current Social Housing.
More resources from Government will help move retrofitting up a level in improving the conditions of the current housing stock. The is something I will pursue if I am reelected to our City Council.
What would you do to help make the city feel less dirty, tackling the rubbish and dog poo all over the streets?
We see both locally and within the City Centre the issues around waste and rubbish left on our streets.
I have worked hard in my term to fund the Councillor Discretionary funds for more Big Belly Bins locally with 6 news in my area since 2019. During the term we have seen 18 new bins installed locally to combat rubbish issues.
With new legislation around the use of CCTV Cameras to help deter repeat offenders will be a game changer for our city. We need to take serious action in cleaning up our city streets this will allow us be proactive in preventing illegal dumping.
What would you do to help tackle vacancy and dereliction?
Fianna Fáil in government have focused on bringing dereliction and vacant units back into use with the likes of Croí Cónaithe Grant.
I would like to see our councils given stronger powers to CPO and renovate derelict and vacant buildings in our city. Our council should be able to access more central funding to repurpose buildings for housing.
What needs to be done to make the city feel safer?
This has been coming up a lot on the doors with people concerned about our City Centre not being safe. I feel we need a serious investment from Government to tackle our city problems. PR stunts will not work we need to focus on a strategy for our City renewal.
My focus would be on Northside with O’Connell Street and surrounding streets needing major improvements.
We need visibility on our Street from our Gardai. Garda resources need to be better managed and a focus on increasing the numbers in urban areas versus retaining the status quo in smaller towns and villages is something the commissioner needs to prioritise.
What needs to be done to improve public transport in the city?
Our Transport infrastructure is not adequate for Dublin City. Metro North is important strategic piece of infrastructure for our City but I think investing in our DART and delivering greater services for it.
We should also open up the conversation again on expanding the DART network towards Dublin Airport before we lose the opportunity to extend the service before we become built up.
What should be done to make it nicer and safer for people to get around the city on foot and by bike?
In other cities I have seen how segregated Pedestrian and cycle lanes work well. Our city needs to encompass more of this. We also have to ensure that we aren’t forgetting about how all roads users link up better with each other.
Our city needs to invest heavily in ensuring our paths and roads are safe and accessible for all people.
What would you do to help counter the rise of the far right, anti-immigrant and anti-LGBTQ+ hate, and anti-asylum-seeker arsons?
All elected representatives need to be united and committed to calling out this behaviour and arson attacks in recent times. We must have zero tolerance on these issues.
The amount of misinformation out there is extremely dangerous and social media platforms need to be held to account on this.
I believe our government could do better to explain our Immigration policies better to the public. The lack of communication has allowed groups to fill a void and scaremongering among communities. An open and honest conversation is important to stamp out misinformation.