MCDONALD TAKES SEAT
FORMER SENATOR and practising solicitor Lisa McDonald is the newest member of Wexford County Council following a convention to fill the vacant seat left by the late Cllr Fergie Kehoe.
Lisa, who was up against Aoife Byrne, Fergie’s brother Sean Kehoe and Fergie’s widow Francis Hore Kehoe, had a ‘comprehensive win’ following the vote last Thursday.
Before addressing her new role as councillor, Lisa paid a tribute to the late Cllr Fergie Kehoe and his family, saying that the night was tinged with sadness.
Twelve years since she first became a Wexford county councillor and five since she completed her role as senator, Lisa said she is looking forward to approaching local politics in a new manner.
‘I’ve an awful lot more experience than the first time I got elected and in that way, I feel I have a lot more to offer. I think I will be taking a different approach and doing this for different reasons,’ she said. ‘When you are young in politics, you can easily get caught on the crest of a wave and be brought along. One has great ambition to get to the top.’
‘ That’s not what I am striving for now. I have been lucky in life and in business and I want to give something back.’
The lack of secondary school places in Wexford is top of Lisa’s agenda as a County Councillor. Having chaired the inaugural meeting of Concerned Parents for Secondary Education in Wexford late last year, Lisa is aware of the issue that faces many local parents and their children.
‘ There is complete inequality of opportunity for 12-year-olds in Wexford. It is disgraceful.
‘ The current minister is not dealing with the matter and I am looking forward to holding him to account on this issue,’ she said.
‘We need a new secondary school. The department don’t agree and are ducking and diving and trying to sweep it under the carpet.
‘ They want to deal with it in an incognito way but I don’t think they are dealing with it in an honest way.’
Lisa has been speaking with local parents about this issue in recent months and said that the struggle to secure a school place is having knock-on effects on the mental health of young people.
‘Parents have told me that they have children crying going to entrance exams and young children going to doctors for depression when they are only 12,’ she said.
The issue of housing and unemployment are also issues that Lisa hopes to address as a councillor.
However, before she seeks to address them, she said she needs to look at why they are such difficult problems to solve.
‘I’m certainly seeking to understand why these issues aren’t being solved.
‘ The current Government has been in power for 56 days and I don’t see much happening,’ she said.
‘What upsets me it that I’m back here now after 12 years and five years since the Senate and we are talking about the same issues.’
‘I think things have slowed down a lot. We are in a recovery situation so we have to be mindful but proper supports need to be put in place.
‘ The building industry offers huge opportunity for Wexford. Wexford builders and tradesmen have always been to the fore so we need to look at that.
‘We have to do anything we can do to make things easier for trades, and young people