‘We need a strong independent voice’
AS the fight to win hearts and minds gathers pace and this month’s by-election draws close some of those hoping to claim the seat vacated by Mick Wallace (MEP) have sought to boost their profile in creative ways.
Videos featuring panoramic shots of the Wexford skyline, high-end production values, and catchy backing tracks have infiltrated social media, showcasing the candidates in their very best light, adding to the posters and flyers, ensuring their faces, and their policies, remain embedded in our psyches.
One of the faces on those posters is that of Aontú Councillor, Jim Codd, but he, for one, has been distinctly unimpressed by his rivals’ filmmaking skills.
‘At the moment various candidates are making films down by the river, I’ve been under that bridge with the people down by the river, in the nooks and crannies where they sleep,’ says Cllr Codd. ‘That’s the story that’s not been told. I walked down the Main Street last Saturday night and I spoke to four homeless men getting into their sleeping bags.’
Comparing the County Council buildings in Carricklawn to a ‘glass palace’; its occupants looking across the land, seeing the tents of the homeless among the fir bushes; the by-election candidate talks of a remove between the ruling class and the rest, a gulf which needs to be bridged.
‘Wexford needs a strong independent voice,’ says the man who has taught in Bridgetown College for the past 25 years. ‘We’ve had enough of polished soundbites. Politicians need to be real people, say real things and stand up for people, I don’t believe that’s happening.
‘The people are every bit as good as they always were, but there is an absence of leadership. It’s all spin and shine. The major parties have blended into one. It’s all about good suits and polished soundbites, rather than courageous stands or standing up for the truth.’
To that end Codd (45), who was elected to the Rosslare Municipal District in this year’s local elections, has been making his presence felt, reviving old controversies, opening wounds which many had presumed healed.
And he says he has no intention of changing his approach.
‘I continue to struggle to get Wexford County Council to address the issues in relation to planning on Anne St. They’re currently under investigation by both the OPW (The Office of Public Works) and the Chief State Solicitor’s office.
‘But whenever the issue is raised in the Chamber any amount of opposition arrives to close it down or divert away from it. Let me assure the people of Wexford I won’t be dropping the ball, I won’t be pushed around and I won’t be silenced.’
Aside from the pursuit of truth and reaching out to those in need what does Codd, and his relatively young party, stand for, and how does he differ from those in the good suits?
‘Aontú has three legs to the stool; firstly the name means Unity, we’re a 32-county, Republican party. And we’re a pro-life party, pro-life is very important to me.
And in being pro-life not alone are you pro-life for the unborn child, you’re pro-life for the homeless, the young person under the bridge, for the single mother, for the person who finds it hard to make ends meet. I can’t say that all the other parties are broadly as pro-life as we are. Finally, social justice, you cannot be pro-life and not agree with social justice.’
Now fully recovered from the virus which momentarily derailed his fledgling political career during the summer, Codd continues to live at the farm he grew up on near Taghmon. Fortunate enough to have a ‘near idyllic upbringing’; one of physical work, fishing on the river, and playing handball; his was a home where education was king. His mother Ann was a primary school teacher, father Ned an avid reader: ‘There was a great respect for education in our house. The house I grew up in was full of books, great value on books.’
Among those books were several on Irish history, great tomes which retold the heroics of those who created this State, men and women whom he continues to hold in great awe. And he believes Aontú contains people of a similar ilk.
‘I would see our party as taking its lead from men like Liam Mellows and I see those that are drawn to it now; the McEllistroms of Kerry, Sean Treacy’s people of Tipperary, the Ryans of Tomcoole, our own Dr Jim Ryan from Taghmon.
‘I’m heartened when I see people of that calibre join us. They’re who I would look up to, I would have grown up reading about them and listening to the high regard my father had for them,’ he says.
Uniquely positioned to assess the next generation of potential politicians, the full-time teacher says he worries about the young people of today, not just on a personal level.
‘Children are leaving school caught in an impossible bind where they can neither go to University of college because the rent is so terribly high, and if they remain here it’s equally impossible to get a start because the insurance for a car is often multiples the cost.
‘There’s an apathy in young people towards politics. When you have only half the people voting the game’s over. They’ve lost interest, we have failed them. No matter how large our egos become we’ve lost the game. They don’t have faith in us, they don’t even bother putting the numbers beside our names. That’s a sad state of affairs, good men and women died so we could vote.’