Supporters urged to work for councillor's return

Cllr Ivan Keatley (centre) with Deputy Martin Heydon and Minister Paul Kehoe at last night's launch of the councillor's election campaign.

Ivan Keatley was very definite about the issues which he sees most important in his area when he launched his campaign to be elected to Kildare County Council last night, writes Brian Byrne.

Pylons, unfinished estates, and the state of the roads are high on his list of things to be dealt with, as is the support necessary for local small businesses, he told a large turnout of family and friends and political allies at the event in The Priory, Walls of Kilgowan.

Reflecting on the three years he has spent as a councillor since taking over Martin Heydon's seat when his lifelong friend was elected to Dáil Éireann, he said he had learned a lot at Kildare County Council in that time.

On the pylons issue, he said he found it difficult to come to terms with planners who enforced roof heights on housing to 'safeguard the scenery and landscape' and then expect people to tolerate 30/40-metre pylons. He noted that he had helped to form the renewable energy committee in the Council, and that councillors had reopened the County Development Plan to consider the impact of pylons on the county's main planning document. "This involves a public consultation process beginning in a few weeks' time which will allow communities like ourselves all over Kildare to have their say," he said.

On small businesses, he said he had helped stop Kildare County Council from raising rates in the last three years, and will work to have the current rates lowered if returned to the Council. "Walk out this door and you don't have to go far to find many tradespeople, contractors, shopkeepers, who are all employing people in difficult times. Rates have been lowered in other counties, and I don't see why we can't do the same in Kildare."

He expressed his thanks to Martin Heydon TD for 'pushing' him into politics, and for his guidance and help over the last three years 'of a steep learning curve'. He also thanked his family for their support over that time. "I have a young family, and we are very much aware of the difficulties which all young families face."

Speaking on his behalf, Deputy Martin Heydon emphasised the important link between local and national representation. Issues that come up at a local level, with local authorities and communities, can often be more quickly answered when they are the subject of questions at national level, he said. He noted as an example how work at the Council by Ivan and his own efforts at Departmental level had restored the badly needed new National School at Crookstown to the schools building programme. The derogation of hay transport from the truck height regulations was another matter which had been raised in the South Kildare constituency and was now benefiting farmers all over the country.

"I can show the important link between local councillors and Dail deputies, and Ivan has gained much experience in the last three years," he said. "But we can't take that for granted. Ivan is effectively contesting his first election, and there's a huge challenge in that, because there will be people going into voting stations who have never seen Ivan Keatley's name on a ballot paper." The Deputy added that if Fine Gael can't ensure that people like Ivan Keatley are put into the next councils, then there will be major challenges in the party itself being returned to power for a second term.

Guest speaker at last night's launch Paul Kehoe TD, Government Chief Whip & Minister of State at the Dept of The Taoiseach and Defence, said it was vitally important that everybody present work to make sure Ivan Keatley is returned to the Council. "When you have a sitting councillor in your area, you never know the amount of work he or she is doing for you until they're gone," he said. "You have a very strong team of Fine Gael councillors right across the county, make sure that you keep them."

Former and long-serving councillor Rainsford Hendy also urged everyone to work over the next seven weeks to ensure Ivan's return to Kildare County Council. "He has proven over the last three years that he's ready to listen, and to follow up on any problems that have been brought to him. He's young, dedicated, and he and Martin Heydon work very well together as a team. But we can't take that for granted. Get out there and make sure that he gets every vote possible, because every single vote wil count."



More pictures here.

NOTE: Ivan Keatley is running in the Athy area in the coming elections, not in the Naas area in which Kilcullen town is now.