Direct council-built housing is essential. We outsource to developers and private investors and this leads to ludicrous “system” where the state props up landlords’ profits through HAP, leasing, and tax breaks for corporates, where schemes like First Home and Help to Buy keep market price of houses out of reach of most ordinary people, where corporations just muscle in and push homebuyers away like what happened in Belcamp with S3 capital and Boroimhe with Ryanair.

AHBs have become a part of the problem too - there are over 500 of them and their operation can be opaque.

FCC built a mere handful of houses directly in 2023.

This requires a national response too - a state construction company is a total no-brainer. But it’s also in Fingal’s power to develop and build themselves. Dublin City Council directly built 2000 social homes between 2019 and 2022 and while this is nowhere nearly enough it puts Fingal County Council to shame; for example in 2021 FCC directly built the sum total of zero social homes.

The alternative of letting private players take over puts the council at a huge disadvantage when trying to provide homes for people. For example, selling off land to Glenveagh at Ballymastone made no sense at the time and makes even less sense now - the developer has already said that the affordable purchase prices previously set would be higher than agreed.

The Fingal Development plan specifies that not for profit creches should be provided for in new and existing developments. Only 6% of creches are not for profit in Fingal - it is within the power of the council to increase this number significantly. I will pursue this matter whether or not I am elected

We need a public swimming pool in Swords. There are multiple sites that have been given SHD planning permission in south Swords - the Lord Mayor's, Forest Road and Pinnock Hill. All of these sites should be taken into public ownership - whether by compulsory purchase or another mechanism - the last site, in particular, is enormous and could easily have a swimming pool incorporated into the construction.

The airport doesn’t need to expand any more. Its emissions are already equivalent to 1.4 million cars per year and the noise and fumes for locals are unbearable. DAA’s infrastructural plans serve the interests of the global and Irish ruling classes.

The fact that Michael O’Leary is name-calling locals “loonies”, that Leo Varadkar recently said that DAA’s plans were good for business says it all. The jobs we need are not those that may or may not arise from the proposed expansion to 40 million passengers per year. We need jobs in providing social homes, metro north and other public transport projects, renewable energy projects, public creches and nursing homes.

Metro North needs to be built without any further delay.

Fingal, and especially Swords, is heavily car dependent. The last thing that should be done is for car users to be penalised or punished for having to commute. Give people a real, workable solution and they'll take it. Free public transport would cost between €300 and €500 million - if we are serious about reaching climate emissions targets, serious about making Fingal a sustainable, decent place to live then we need to make investments of this nature. The Greens may believe that free public transport will lead to people taking unnecessary journeys but this is simply ludicrous.

We need to get real. Our first concern should be to get people places to live. And by that I mean all people. Who lives here belongs here - and we have more than enough wealth to provide houses and healthcare for all - homeless, direct provision, IP applicants, our Ukrainian friends, many of whom will be here for the foreseeable - then the city will be nicer to get around.

I find it hard to care about this when I see how cruelly those IP applicants were treated by the state on St Patrick's weekend, when I know that 39% of Travellers are technically homeless, when I see the people lugging heavy shopping bags up the back roads from Charlestown to Balseskin. "Nicer and Safer" trips around are the concern of the privileged middle class.

Free, frequent, green public transport.

We have the lowest population density in Europe. Planners should not grant permission to high rise developments, especially in Fingal. The SHD planning permission for development at the Lord Mayor's in Swords is being judicially reviewed at the moment - that permission should have been refused because that corner of Swords is way too tight for the proposed 146 apartments. The site should be developed directly by the council for a far smaller number of social residences - with fully integrated public facilities included - a creche, a community centre.

The biodiversity of "the Jacko" (the River Valley Park) is, regardless of the terms of the planning conditions attached to the ABP permission is under clear threat from the construction as currently planned.

I make the point again - it is a privilege to be concerned about biodiversity. Most working class people have far more pressing concerns - in health, there are over one million people on public waiting lists of one kind or another. I would be more concerned with the fact that Swords doesn't have a general hospital. That's longer term development but I can't think of a town of comparable size that doesn't have such a basic facility.

Fingal county is an agricultural area. People get worked up about emissions from the airport and commuter traffic and quite rightly so; but the emissions from agriculture are many multiples of what comes from aviation. Nationally, there needs to a rapid decarbonisation of agricultural activity through a just transition for workers in that sector

The River Valley Park (the Jacko) should be developed and protected right up to Knocksedan. Cycle paths, walkways, a greenway intersecting with the north-south greenway extending out to Donabate would be a fantastic amenity. Publicly nursing homes could be built there - it would be a fantastic reward for people at the end of their working lives to be cared for in such a beautiful place.

I was in Vienna a few years ago. In addition to having fantastic public housing they also have huge dog off-leash parks that would encourage responsible dog ownership. A lot of people who talk about responsible dog ownership don't understand that off-leash pens like the one in River Valley are totally counter productive. The Off-leash area in Malahide is closer to what is needed.

When it comes to sports, it was a great shame when Sporting Fingal failed a decade ago. The example set by teams like Bohemians with their anti-racist and pro-Palestinian campaigns shows how sports can have an enormously positive influence on the wider society.