People’s Candidate in County Cork Local Electoral Area – Ballincollig-Carrigaline

Shirley can be contacted via mobile phone on 086 3764647 or a message for her can be left here.

Shirley has lived in the Ballincollig area for the past 11 years, she is committed to family and community.

Over the past few years Shirley has been watching, like so many others, as our country moved deeper into crisis.

Every few weeks there have been new scandals, new impositions on already hard-pressed families.  Decisions are made in our name that we have had no part in making, promises made during elections are broken and we are told to accept this.  Senior citizens are threatened by public servants; essential services withdrawn – we are being dictated to by those who are supposed to represent us!

We must conclude that nobody in Government, either local or national, is acting in the interests of the people.   There are all serving narrow vested interests in one form or another and it is the system of Political Parties itself that facilitates this.

Shirley has been active in the movement against the imposition of policy on the people, including against the Local Property Tax, the current imposition of Water Charges and in trying to expose the lack of democracy generally that prevails today.

Shirley has taken the responsibility of standing up for her community, to ensure that there is a proper system of representation that relies only on consultation with the community – not a Party ‘whip‘ or any individual’s personal ideas.

Shirley has signed THE PEOPLE’S CONTRACT, and is committed to building the movement through which the people will be empowered.

We hope that you will support her and all other candidates who have signed this same contract, committing to democracy.

Personal details:

Born 1965 in Glasnevin, Dublin Shirley worked as a PA Secretary for 17 years with many companies including the Department of Health and Ulster Bank.  She was educated at St Mary’s Holy Faith Convent, Glasnevin and attended 3rd level at WhitehallCommercialCollege, Drumcondra.

Shirley lives in Ballincollig with her family – her husband and three daughters 6, 8 and 10 years old.

Personal statement:

My husband and I moved to Cork eleven years ago.  It was a career move for my husband and also we could not afford to buy a house in the area where I grew up because the house prices had been allowed to rise too high.  Our three children were born in Cork and I have been a homemaker for all that time.  I decided 18 months ago that the time was right for me to go back to working outside the home.  I have written over a hundred letters to companies, applied for many job vacancies, registered with several agencies, but still I haven’t been for one interview.  That speaks volumes for the state of our economy.  I am a qualified experienced secretary, so why can I not get a job?

Are we to continue to have either Fianna Fail or Fine Gael in government for the rest of eternity?  These two parties ruined our economy.  They should never be allowed to rule our country again.  Taxing our homes was the last straw.  I have not paid the property tax on our home and I have no intention of ever doing so.  It is morally wrong. We all pay for our refuse collections and to the have the grass cut in our housing estates, and we pay every time we visit the GP and the pharmacy (unless of course you are entitled to a medical card).  I am not objecting to paying taxes and paying for services but the property tax was brought in because our economy was in ruins due to the mismanagement and corruption of our own government.

And they want us to bail them out.

Yet they continue to receive their large salaries and expenses and pensions.  Are they for real?  And yet so many people have been scared into paying it.  And now they are going to take phones away from elderly people, a valuable lifeline for so many.  Hospitals are in dire shortage of nurses and young doctors working dangerously long shifts.

The country needs new blood to help run it – people like me who were not born with a silver spoon in their mouth.  I am not living in an ivory tower.  None of my family on either side has ever been in politics.  I come from a family of hard working people.  Unemployment has visited my family.  I know about the cost of keeping an elderly sick parent in a nursing home.  I am living in the real world.  I am living in the Ireland moulded and shaped by Fianna Fail and Fine Gael.  They have done a real bad job.  The founders of our state would be disgusted by them.  These old dinosaurs have had their day.

It is time to start afresh.  New blood, new thinking.  What’s the worst that could happen?