Local activist Sue Breen declares intention to contest local election
FIRST time election candidate Susan (Sue) Breen is planning to use her grassroots campaigning work experience to win over voters ahead of polling day in the local elections this May 24.
Campaigning on improving the health service, the lack of social housing in the area, low pay, zero hour contract work conditions, rural development and supports for young people, mother-of-three Sue said: ‘I have been an activist since I was in my teens and never had any time for politics whatsoever. I just had no faith in it.’
It was only when Sue became involved in the anti-water charges movement that she was inspired to get involved in politics. ‘I got to know Richard Boyd Barrett, Bríd Smith and Gino Kenny (of the People Before profit party). I saw how they were only taking the industrial wage and that sparked my interest so I joined the party and they asked if I’d set up a branch in the New Ross district.’
The Ballykelly woman was one of the organisers of the Together for Yes campaign locally and was involved in the marriage equality referendum campaign. Now living in Dunganstown with her partner Hugh Lewis, Sue says she wants a better society for her children Anwin, Heidi and Eliza to grow up in. She is the international coordinator for extinction rebellion and has been involved in environmental awareness campaigns.
For her campaign she is using poster boards from Deirdre Wadding’s campaign with her face superimposed on them ‘because the waste is just ridiculous’. She has received a warm response during her campaign which has been up and running for several weeks, adding that people are responding to her party’s egalitarian principles and activist, non-careerist roots. Sue has also been active in highlighting the case of New Ross boy Asseel Osman, who suffers from Cerebral Palsy and Epilepsy and needs cannabis oil to ease his seizures, and also the plight of a local homeless mother who has been living in a B&B for several months.
‘I am very much a grassroots activist. I already have case work. I’m not enamoured with the idea of cross-party fighting at meetings or talking shops. I’m tired of nothing ever happening and am much more comfortable on the ground dealing with people and trying to help people.’
The busy mother of a 15-yearold boy and twin three-year-old girls said she doesn’t feel there is any time to wait. ‘My children are interested in what I’m doing,’ she said, adding that she feels councillors should be paid more ‘if they were actually doing the work’, adding ‘when someone is doing it as a sideline job then absolutely no, they shouldn’t be paid more.’
‘I was involved in campaigns for years but it was the mass mobilisation involved in the water charges movement that was really inspirational to me. You are used to working with a small group of people doing your own thing but with the water charges it seemed to be a nationwide upsurge in people power and that changed things for a lot of people.’
Sue spent a lot of her time in Dublin during the campaign where she witnessed homelessness. ‘It became apparent that the lack of housing wasn’t just affecting people in cities. Thousands of people are homeless and there is no real will to change anything.’
Sue is launching her campaign at the Green Door pub, Mary Street, New Ross, on Saturday, February 2, at 3 p.m.
I’M TIRED OF NOTHING EVER HAPPENING AND AM MUCH MORE COMFORTABLE ON THE GROUND HELPING PEOPLE