Over-building to the fore in Wicklow

COUNTY COUNCIL PROFILE: WICKLOW:

IN THE Garden County, local politics is frequently related to development. As far south as Arklow, relentless house-building throughout the boom years has put intense pressure on services, as the badly-polluted Avoca river can attest.

Water and waste water in Arklow has been a problem for a decade and a half, so much so that a protester broke into the local reservoir during the 2007 general election count. This forced the authorities to turn off water, for safety reasons, to much of the town, including the count centre.

The same year Garda divers searching the town’s Avoca river became ill due to the presence of untreated sewage. Add to this the floods which frequently engulf the town, and you can imagine some interesting canvassing.

Five of the 24 seats on Wicklow County Council are assigned to the Arklow electoral area. Labour, which holds only Nicky Kelly’s seat here, will be hoping to make some ground, most likely at the expense of Fianna Fáil. Fine Gael stands a good chance of retaining two seats and Fianna Fáil is assured of at least one.

In the three-seat Baltinglass electoral area, Independent Tommy Cullen has become a regular thorn in the side of the council administration in relation to development issues. He is likely to retain his seat. So too is Edward Timmins of Fine Gael.

Fianna Fáil is standing just one candidate in the Baltinglass electoral area, Geraldine Cole, a political adviser to Minister for European Affairs Dick Roche.

Across the county in the Greystones electoral area, Mr Roche’s wife Eleanor is hoping to take back the council seat she lost in 2004. On that occasion she was pipped by fellow party member Kathleen Kelleher.

On the council, Ms Kelleher was a supporter of the controversial €300 million harbour redevelopment while her fellow councillor, Labour’s Tom Fortune, was against.

The public-private partnership involving Wicklow County Council split the local community and it will be interesting to see if the voters take sides.

Greystones returns four seats and the remaining two are held by George Jones and Derek Mitchell of Fine Gael and it is likely they will be retained. However Fine Gael newcomer Simon Harris, a parliamentary assistant to Senator Frances Fitzgerald, Sinn Féin’s Anthony McCoy, Caroline Burrell of the Green Party and independent Charlie Keddy, will be seeking to upset the status quo.

Another parliamentary assistant standing for election, this time in the Bray electoral area, is Jane Dignam of Fianna Fáil who works with Independent TD Joe Behan.

This area holds seven council seats and onlookers believe the first five will go to Independent Christopher Fox; John Ryan of Fine Gael; Pat Vance of Fianna Fáil; John Byrne of Labour and John Brady of Sinn Féin.

Sitting councillor Ciarán O’Brien of the Green Party, Barry Nevin of the Labour Party, and Michael Lawlor and Damien Meaney of Fianna Fáil, are likely to be fighting for the remaining three places.

HOW THE PARTIES STAND

(Outgoing)

FF6

FG7

Lab6

GP1

Others4