Ask The Candidate - Sheila Cahill, Green Party, Limerick City

Icky Thump

to be fair the level of maturity by certain posters on this thread has driven away a well intentioned candidate away from this area of communication. its sad.

Sheila will be getting my number one

firstly i want to vote for somebody new. i dont want these idiots that have already been there (doing nothing for the country) to be voted back in.

its a shame that there wasnt more tds who would just go away after the last attempt at having a government in this country.


secondly, are you all insane................. i mean seriously. attacking her because she is going green party?????

lets see the other options
FF ..................... haha yea right
FG do you actually believe they stopped being corrupt and now they will do the right thing for us?? we thought that about FF the last time around and look how that turned out
labour ......... wow this one is the best. theu are struggling to be a minority party with FG and they cant stop picking fights with them. yea they will really help the country. if you think the greens backed out when things went bad just wait and see what labour will do.
then we have the socialists and the religious parties............. yea i wonder if god can save the country

my point is not one single party should be favoured this time around.

no party should be voted for


we should be voting for the right candidate. the candidate. the person that will fight tooth and naill for this city.
and im not talking about willie's fighting skills either.

Willie o'dea does favours for people in this city and he will get voted back in. UNFORTUNATLY.

he is a good people person but what exactly does he do for the country. his job was to implement policy and run the government ffs not to do favours for tom down the road who needs a medical card. go to your local counciller for that tom.





so im voting for sheila. i dont know the woman and before the campaign i never heard of her. i just checked the list of candidates last week and done my research. im voting for whpo i think deserves it. the person i believe will make a difference. the person from her backround shows that she wants to make a change.

im not telling you all to vote for her. im telling you all to do some reading and find out about the candidates instead of just foccusing on the parties(like we always do and look at us now). lets make a difference people lets vote with our brains for once and not vote for the conmen or the lads who can do us a favour.



good luck Sheila

Itsdacraic

Icky Thump wrote: »

to be fair the level of maturity by certain posters on this thread has driven away a well intentioned candidate away from this area of communication. its sad.

Sheila will be getting my number one

firstly i want to vote for somebody new. i dont want these idiots that have already been there (doing nothing for the country) to be voted back in.

its a shame that there wasnt more tds who would just go away after the last attempt at having a government in this country.


secondly, are you all insane................. i mean seriously. attacking her because she is going green party?????

I've actually done from research myself and it turns out that Green Party, who Sheila is a member of, were actually in power for the past 4 years with Fianna Fail while the country went down the swanny.

Insect Overlord

Thread closed, pending further advice.

Insect Overlord

Some further answers from Sheila Cahill, sent via PM:

Sheila Cahill wrote:

Sheila why don't you point out a wind or wave powered Car and educate us so we might bow to your logic and pursue your rational and utterly feasible alternative?

Could you please point me in the direction of a practical day to day car powered by wind or waves?

Nissan/Renault chose Ireland as one of their 'launch countries' for their electric car range this year. This is great news because although we don't produce the 'hardware' (i.e. the cars), we have a real chance to become experts in the 'software' -- the charging infrastructure and grid arrangements. We've a natural competitive advantage for implementing electric cars, we have (unfortunately) a very car-dependent society, we have a fast-expanding wind energy capacity, and we don't have much heavy industry which requires lots of electricity at night.

Nissan/Renault are launching their electric cars this year in Ireland, thanks to Green Party policy. If you're someone who believes that oil will stay under $100 a barrel for the next 20 years, then this will all seem a bit irrelevant (although it seems like it already hit that price today), but I think we need to be planning now for the possibility that oil might hit $200 a barrel, and doing everything we can to ensure that our economy and society isn't destroyed if this happens.

Was there no other hobbies left to try that you had to run for Political Office? They do 10,000 piece jigsaws now you know......

I don't apologise for standing up for the principles and policies that I believe in. To be honest I respect anyone who is prepared to put themselves forward in front of the electorate, including all of the candidates in Limerick City. I have met most of the candidates on the campaign trail and even though I disagree with them on policy, I do respect the fact that they are engaging in the democratic process.

I also am curious re the funding of your core business, are you formerly public gone private?

No. I worked for a community and voluntary organisation (the Carmichael Centre) since 2000. I now work for myself.

Will you wind up your current business interests or will your snout be in multiple public sector troughs if elected to Dail Eireann?

If elected will you cease to run you current business?

Yes, I will cease to run my current business if elected.

If Aer Lingus pulled out of Shannon again, and you were in government and it went to a Dail vote would vote for the people who elected you or would you tow the party line?

On the Shannon question, I think we all need to work together to ensure that the mid-west region offers a compelling tourism product so that there is a high demand for flights to Shannon. Our region needs to be attracting visitors on its own merits, not just because of a government shareholding in an airline. On the question of Aer Lingus pulling out of Shannon and a Dáil vote, I would use my influence to communicate with my party colleagues in forming a policy position, and I would actively seek out the views of constituents in this process. But I wouldn't be the kind of TD that would break with a policy position just because I thought it would get me more votes in my constituency.

Insect Overlord

Okay, having had further contact from Ms Cahill, I think we can open this thread again. With tomorrow being the big day, it's unlikely that questions will be answered in the coming days, but any genuine queries should be responded to soon enough.

Amazotheamazing

I'm very conflicted by this, tbh. The Green party have excellent policies, and in Shelia Cahill and formerly James Nix, they seem to have excellent candidates but their leadership badly let Ireland (and the Green Party themselves) down over their term in Government.

I'm not surprised there's a lot of anger on this thread, it's fully deserved, but how many of the outraged people on here actually got out and worked for change during this election? I canvassed for Keiran O'Donnell, not because I think he's the bees knees or anything, but I felt I needed to get out and try and make a change. I could just no longer sit at home and watch from the sidelines. Part of me wanted to canvass with Leddin, part of me wanted to canvass just to try and stop SF getting a seat. At least I can say i tried to make a difference, I hope the whiners on here can say the same.

Politically I'm centrist, I could easily swing back to Labour or the Greens if I feel FG let the country down in the next Government. I hope candidates like Sheila Cahill and Cian Prenderville stay involved, our city council badly needs fresh ideas and hopefully this round of canvassing will stand to them.

cancan

Sheila Cahill wrote: »

A small example of the kind of employment that can be generated in Limerick is Southill Community Services. Under the Warmer Homes Scheme they provide insulation and energy-efficiency measures to homes in Co. Limerick, East Co. Clare, North Co. Tipperary and South Co. Offaly to low-income households under the Warmer Homes Scheme. I don't have the current number of people employed under this scheme in Southill to hand, but it's a real example of the kind of "Green Jobs" that can deliver for Limerick.

IFinally, Limerick's position on the western seaboard and our access to road and rail links, as well as our access to talented graduates, would make it an ideal location for a green technology hub. Our geographical position makes us an ideal place for timber processing, sustainable food processing and creative services. We could play to those strengths.

First off thanks for coming on here.

Why is it that any jobs the green party claims to have created, always involve he taxpayer shelling out bucketloads of cash in grants to make happen.
The ride to work scheme - cash cash cash.
Home insulation - cash cash cash.

Have you guys ever managed to crerate 1 job that did not involve throwing taxpayers money away to create?

If you are paying over the odds in grants to create 'jobs', you're not creating jobs at the end of the day.

Pull the grants and the jobs go - This is not a sustainable policy for the future.
The greens seem to be well capable of giving other peoples money away, but very poor at coming up with good long term job creation strategies.


Also, can you explain the logic of me having to shell out 600 quid to tax my car that is worth less than 500 euro, when people who buy new 80k BMW's pay 200 a year?
Miles traveled and pollution created don't even enter the equation.

Why bother with having all these motor tax office people sitting around doing very little when a simplified tax on fuel would be much fairer and easier to police.

phill106

If Aer Lingus pulled out of Shannon again, and you were in government and it went to a Dail vote would vote for the people who elected you or would you tow the party line?

On the Shannon question, I think we all need to work together to ensure that the mid-west region offers a compelling tourism product so that there is a high demand for flights to Shannon. Our region needs to be attracting visitors on its own merits, not just because of a government shareholding in an airline. On the question of Aer Lingus pulling out of Shannon and a Dáil vote, I would use my influence to communicate with my party colleagues in forming a policy position, and I would actively seek out the views of constituents in this process. But I wouldn't be the kind of TD that would break with a policy position just because I thought it would get me more votes in my constituency.

So toe the party line then, ignoring the wishes of your constituents that elected you ,if the party line was to not interfere in the running of aer lingus, despite being a major shareholder.
Those votes would have voted you in, and you valued there opinion then. Why would you then ignore those same voters once you had the chance?
Good to know though...

Sheila Cahill

Hi everyone. A few more questions answered below. I'll try to be online again later this evening to answer any final questions you might have. Thanks to everyone who has contributed so far.

I'm not surprised there's a lot of anger on this thread, it's fully deserved, but how many of the outraged people on here actually got out and worked for change during this election? I canvassed for Keiran O'Donnell, not because I think he's the bees knees or anything, but I felt I needed to get out and try and make a change. I could just no longer sit at home and watch from the sidelines.

Hi there, I know you didn't ask a question but I just wanted to say fair play for getting out there. Obviously I don't agree with Kieran O'Donnell's positions on a wide range of issues, but I have the utmost respect for anyone who's prepared to engage with politics. Local elections aren't that far away and I'd love to see a shake-up in Limerick City Council, with more women and young people in particular standing for election. Hopefully you got bitten by the canvassing bug and you'll continue to make a contribution to politics.

Why is it that any jobs the green party claims to have created, always involve he taxpayer shelling out bucketloads of cash in grants to make happen.

First of all, you'll notice that all parties' manifestos contain commitments to spending taxpayer's money generating jobs. So it's not just a Green Party thing.
I think the current unemployment crisis does justify the spending of money to create jobs. The plummet in the construction sector followed by jobs losses in other sectors of the economy have made a huge number of people unemployed, particularly young males.

I believe that when you spend money creating jobs, the trick is to make sure that there's a long-term benefit to society beyond taking someone off the live register, as important as that is. The objective of the insulation programme is to make sure that people need to spend less money heating their homes. Oil just reached €120 a barrel. I've said this before, I don't think €200 a barrel is out of the question. If we can insulate (pardon the pun) ourselves from the impact of another oil crisis, our economy and society will be better off as a result.

It's also worth noting that Labour, Fine Gael, Sinn Fein, Fianna Fail and the Socialist Party have all copied our insulation scheme policy to some extent, so if you really are opposed to it, your voting options are limited...

I also think the Green Party's proposal to train 20,000 unemployed people to work with 100,000 Irish businesses to help them sell online is a great idea, and good value at an estimated cost of €75m over 5 years

Also, can you explain the logic of me having to shell out 600 quid to tax my car that is worth less than 500 euro, when people who buy new 80k BMW's pay 200 a year?
A decision was made that the new, emissions-based taxes would only apply to cars registered after the new rules came in. Reason being that it was unfair to change people from a cc-based charge to a CO2 based charge retrospectively.
The justification on changing the tax in the first place was to change the basis of the tax from something arbitrary (engine capacity) to something that causes society harm (CO2 emissions)

So toe the party line then, ignoring the wishes of your constituents that elected you ,if the party line was to not interfere in the running of aer lingus, despite being a major shareholder.
Those votes would have voted you in, and you valued there opinion then. Why would you then ignore those same voters once you had the chance?

I'm not saying ignore voters at all, in fact I'd like to do exactly the opposite. I think there's lots of scope for using electronic and other means to efficiently get the views of constituents (and if elected I would be back on this forum and others looking for ideas on how this could be done effectively). What I am saying is that I am putting myself forward as a member of a political party on a comprehensive platform. That does mean that policy positions get taken on what we think is in the best interests of all people in Ireland. Obviously electing a Green TD for Limerick City would ensure a strong Limerick voice in these discussions.

As I've mentioned before there's a more fundamental issue to tackle in relation to Shannon Airport. We need to work on a regional basis (and the Greens' proposals for regional authorities would help in this regard) to make sure that Shannon is a gateway to a world-class tourism product, which includes Limerick as a vibrant and eco-friendly urban centre. That's the only thing that will make Shannon thrive in the long-run.


Sheila.

cancan

Sheila Cahill wrote: »

Why is it that any jobs the green party claims to have created, always involve he taxpayer shelling out bucketloads of cash in grants to make happen.

First of all, you'll notice that all parties' manifestos contain commitments to spending taxpayer's money generating jobs. So it's not just a Green Party thing.
I think the current unemployment crisis does justify the spending of money to create jobs. The plummet in the construction sector followed by jobs losses in other sectors of the economy have made a huge number of people unemployed, particularly young males.

I believe that when you spend money creating jobs, the trick is to make sure that there's a long-term benefit to society beyond taking someone off the live register, as important as that is. The objective of the insulation programme is to make sure that people need to spend less money heating their homes. Oil just reached €120 a barrel. I've said this before, I don't think €200 a barrel is out of the question. If we can insulate (pardon the pun) ourselves from the impact of another oil crisis, our economy and society will be better off as a result.

Perhaps if oil products were not made up of 70% tax already we wouldn't be damaging the economy with prices as they are. If it goes to $200, would you support tax being reduced by 50% to keep our economy moving? You can't keep slapping a tax on something if there is no viable alternative to. Given that most of our power is generated by fossil fuels anyway. We're creating our own oil crisis with the ridiculous taxation already being put upon the motorist. With costs as high as they are, it's pretty obvious that people have no choice but to use their current modes of transport, and have no choice in having to pay these huge costs.

Sheila Cahill wrote: »

It's also worth noting that Labour, Fine Gael, Sinn Fein, Fianna Fail and the Socialist Party have all copied our insulation scheme policy to some extent, so if you really are opposed to it, your voting options are limited...

I'm not opposed to green initiatives - I'm oppossed to ones that rely on taxpayer funding to make them viable at the expense of other areas of the economy where the money could be put to more productive use.

Sheila Cahill wrote: »

I also think the Green Party's proposal to train 20,000 unemployed people to work with 100,000 Irish businesses to help them sell online is a great idea, and good value at an estimated cost of €75m over 5 years

Sell what on line exactly - this sounds like another Ennis Information Age white elephant - if a business person has not figured out by now that the internet may be used to increase sales, they really shouldn't be in business in the first place.
Why not save 75 million by pointing those who would partake in that training course at google and search "how to sell stuff online"

Sheila Cahill wrote: »

Also, can you explain the logic of me having to shell out 600 quid to tax my car that is worth less than 500 euro, when people who buy new 80k BMW's pay 200 a year?
A decision was made that the new, emissions-based taxes would only apply to cars registered after the new rules came in. Reason being that it was unfair to change people from a cc-based charge to a CO2 based charge retrospectively.
The justification on changing the tax in the first place was to change the basis of the tax from something arbitrary (engine capacity) to something that causes society harm (CO2 emissions)

Which produces more Co2 - A new 80k BMW doing 50k kms a year (tax 156 a year), or a 15 year old 2ltr Carina doing 5k km's per year (600+ road tax per year).
Lets not kid ourselves here - the new tax bands do absolutely bugger all for the environment, (I don’t see how forcing people to purchase new cars ever would, while making older ones disposable), erodes the values of older cars, and is in effect a tax on the poorer in society.

Green policy is all about taxing the bejesus out of anything which it's founders don't like as an excuse not to tackle problems with viable long term solutions, and is the primary reason why they are languishing in the polls.

Either way, I wish you the best in the election, and commend you for coming on here. It shows great initiative, and shows that while I may disagree with green policies, you guys have some very decent people running for you.

It's a pity people will vote for O'Dea and his likes again, but that is not your fault.

Amazotheamazing

Sheila Cahill wrote: »

Hi there, I know you didn't ask a question but I just wanted to say fair play for getting out there. Obviously I don't agree with Kieran O'Donnell's positions on a wide range of issues, but I have the utmost respect for anyone who's prepared to engage with politics. Local elections aren't that far away and I'd love to see a shake-up in Limerick City Council, with more women and young people in particular standing for election. Hopefully you got bitten by the canvassing bug and you'll continue to make a contribution to politics.

The way things are going it's hard to know if I'll still be here by the time the local elections roll around but looking at the current council we have, it's clear change is needed. I'm no hardcore FG supporter, indeed, I think guys like Kiely make both Limerick and FG look bad so hopefully more small parties like the Greens and the Socialists can make an impact.

Sheila Cahill

Thanks for the replies and further questions.

Perhaps if oil products were not made up of 70% tax already we wouldn't be damaging the economy with prices as they are. If it goes to $200, would you support tax being reduced by 50% to keep our economy moving?

If oil is going to go up to €200 a barrel, we need to be taking action now, because by the time the price of oil gets that high, we won't have any money to relieve the burden on lower-income families, and it'll be too late to do anything about our oil dependence. Countries like Sweden are already ahead of us on this. Waiting until the next oil crisis isn't an option.

Which produces more Co2 - A new 80k BMW doing 50k kms a year (tax 156 a year), or a 15 year old 2ltr Carina doing 5k km's per year (600+ road tax per year).

Agree with you that the CO2 emissions of producing a new car needs to be taken into account, but given that today's new cars will eventually become second hand cars, it made sense to re-jig our motor car system to encourage people to buy energy-efficient cars.


Thanks,

Sheila.

gaf1983

I asked this candidate a few questions before and in fairness she sent some very thoughtful detailed replies. You can read 5 other candidates' (Noonan, Leddin, O'Dea, O'Sullivan and Quinlivan) responses to the same questions here:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=70852682&postcount=258

Grizzly 45

After reading this all I can say GONE AND GOOD RIDDANCE TO THIS GREEN PEST!!

Clareman

I can't see any reason to keep this open seeing as the election is long since over.