Viewpoint: We have councillors, now it's up to us

So, with the dust settled on the elections at least locally to Kilcullen, what was it all about and what will be? writes Brian Byrne.

Well, in the Naas area through which we will be represented in the next five years, we now have a mixture of stalwarts and new people in the Council chamber. But all of them in a totally new environment. That has ramifications which weren't necessarily part of the electoral to and fro on the canvass grounds in advance of last Friday's poll.

For a start, instead of a Council of 25 members, the new one will have 40. Quite apart from the fact that this is going to mean a major rejig of seating in the Council chamber at Arus Cill Dara to an 'inner' and 'outer' arrangement (and a whole new meaning to the term 'backbenchers'), discussions on business will become more complex, and will take longer. Whoever has the mayoral chair will need singular skills to keep things on track. And whoever schedules the agenda will also have to be aware of new limitations on what is possible to deal with in a meeting.

'Our' councillors of the Naas Municipal District — the term replaces 'local electoral area' once the new Council is established — will be fighting to make their voices heard from a larger, and louder, chorus. They will also be trying to optimise our District's share of resources, both services and financial, in a new era where the Council is going to have to make much more difficult decisions on its funding above and beyond the share of local property tax which will be the baseline financial underpinning of its activities. Competing claims from Kildare-Newbridge, Maynooth, Leixlip-Celbridge, and Athy will likely be much more compelling than was the case before. And into that bubbling cauldron, there's the seasoning of a political landscape which has changed, not as drastically as this weekend's headlines might suggest, but a fair bit.

Before the election we in Kilcullen and the Naas LEA were given the opportunity to sift through the political and personal attributes of some 16 candidates seeking to have them represent us. We now have the chosen nine by those four in ten of us in Kilcullen who elected to make a decision last Friday.

Whether we like it or not, we in Kilcullen now need to consider our village grown bigger as an extension of Naas. The county town no longer has a separate Town Council, formerly UDC, which insulated itself somewhat from Kildare County Council, and which kept us fairly significantly distanced from that town's needs and decisions. We can no longer expect that buffer, especially now that we are electorally and politically part and parcel of the new Naas Municipal District. And, really, back to where we belong in practical area terms.

When, under the auspices of KCA, we organised the innovative Town Meeting for candidates in advance of the election, most of those who have now been elected turned up. Others sent apologies for acceptable reasons. A handful of the many hundreds of Kilcullen households sent representatives to take part.

I spent most of the past day and a half at the Punchestown Count Centre, covering the proceedings of the Naas LEA for Kilcullen of a democratic electoral process which I believe, whatever its flaws, works as amongst the best of its kind in the world. I met and talked with both elected and unsuccessful candidates, and all of them were positive about our Town Meeting initiative. Some are already on their own record as being ready to do it on a regular basis. Certainly, we have commitments that they will turn up to another one in advance of voting on the Draft Kilcullen Local Area Plan, a meeting which KCA has already decided to arrange.

Because as a community we are now in a much more competitive situation for those services and financial supports which may become available from Kildare County Council, it is in Kilcullen's best interests that we engage with and support all of the new councillors who will be representing us. It is all the more reason why we need to meet with them all regularly on our turf, which is their Kilcullen turf no matter where they reside in the NMD. If we have issues, they need to know that we all believe in letting our representatives know about them.

Bottom line, now we're all in this together. When we organise meetings with those who are looking after our local affairs over the next five years, we need to show that we care about what they do. By turning up when they come to hear us.

The election is over. Now comes the hard part. To make it all work. For us, as part of Naas, in support of Naas, and for Kilcullen. Do make the effort when asked.