Social Democrat Councillor Gary Gannon today launched a staunch defence of local election candidate Ellie Kisyombe in the wake of controversy over her candidacy, insisting that “she’s a leader and I’d follow her into any battle”.
Gannon also argued that the recent slew of resignations from the Social Democrats, which has seen the party’s Chair and Vice-Chair withdraw in protest at the party’s handling of the controversy, “doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s game over”.
Speaking at a press conference in Trinity, Gannon said the party would work with Kisyombe to develop guidelines to help individuals from different backgrounds to be better protected within the Social Democrats.
He said that people who have experience with situations like Kisyombe’s case are going to be in charge of making it easier for people from different backgrounds to feel comfortable in coming into Irish politics.
“Ellie is a leader. She knew that when she got involved in politics that she was going to be targeted to a degree”, he said.
Gannon said there are “two potential outcomes” from a controversy that has seen questions raised over the accuracy of information Kisyombe provided about when she arrived in Ireland. “One, it could divide us, and secondly, it could make us stronger, because I do think to have uncomfortable conversations is really important.”
“We’re still here”, he said, “we’re still durable, we’re still having internal conversations with ourselves about what our values mean.”
At the press conference, which was organised for transition-year students taking part in a journalism access programme run by The University Times, Gannon also said Irish politics needs “more courage” in tackling social housing.
Quizzed on the attitudes of county councils to social housing, Gannon said that, in his five years of working in the council, “I haven’t seen too many housing plans being turned down at council level”.
But in 2015, theJournal.ie reported that councils all over Ireland turned down around 4,000 social housing units offered by Nama. Four Dublin councils were offered 2,030 properties, with an uptake of just 757.
He identified as a problem the “not in my backyard” approach of many people: “We all talk about that there’s a housing crisis, but yet none of us want to build up too high, because residents who have already voted for us will be on to us and say, ‘that’s gonna overshadow my back garden’.”
“Even if something isn’t popular, we’re going to do it anyway”, he said. “I think that’s what we need at local council level and national politics.”
The University Times‘s journalism access programme sees dozens of transition-year students spend a week in Trinity learning about the importance of journalism. The initiative is run in partnership with the Trinity Access Programme (TAP).
This piece was written by secondary students taking part in The University Times’s journalism access programme.
