This is planned to be an updating page on what our local candidates for Kildare South in the upcoming General Election are talking about. We'll see how it develops.
The candidates declared so far are Declan Crowe (I), Martin Heydon (FG). Fiona McLoughlin Healy (FG), Sean Ó Fearghaill (FF), Fiona O'Loughlin (FF), Patricia Ryan (SF) and Mark Wall (LAB).
10 January 2016
Welcoming the offer of 2,860 training and further education course places for the Athy area by the Kildare Wicklow Education and Training Board, Labour Party candidate Cllr Mark Wall has called on the Government to ensure that those availing of this training maintain their payments and that the Government continue to develop incentives to employers to employ those from the Live Register. He noted that one of the courses to be developed and expanded will be the Traineeship Course for Construction Operatives, a very successful pilot scheme run in Athy where long term unemployed developed basic skill sets including obtaining the various Health and Safety Certificates and Construction Tickets to allow them become employable once more.
Cllr Fiona McLoughlin Healy, running for FG, has launched a 'Snow Wardens' project, asking volunteers willing to visit vulnerable people in their community during cold weather to get in touch with her. She hopes to build a panel of people who can provide a friendly face or bring supplies to those in need during the bad weather. Email fiona@fmcloughlinhealy.ie.
Cllr Fiona O'Loughlin, a Fianna Fail candidate, said that Athy would be a perfect centre to set up an an Apprenticeship Training Centre, a third level college targeting apprenticeships for the construction trades and cottage food industries. She noted that there's a shortfall particularly of plasterers and bricklayers, and that when the Government shut down FAS some years ago, there was no replacement apprenticeship scheme. In the food area, she said that the development of future foods and technologies will be a 'massive' industry.
Deputy Martin Heydon FG has noted that 595 new jobs were provided in Kildare by 174 Enterprise Ireland supported companies in the county. He said they are among 8,308 people now employed in the companies, representing over 2,400 additional new EI jobs in Kildare since this Government was elected. This proves that the Government's job strategy is working, he says.
