Meet Your Independent Candidate

Seán McCabe

Seán McCabe is ‘Independent/Community’ candidate for the Cabra/Glasnevin area for Dublin City Council in the Local Elections on May 24.

Seán is a scientist and works with the Think-tank for Action on Social Change (TASC). He is a Director of My Streets, a social enterprise that ’empowers people recovering from homelessness in Dublin’.

Seán writes:

The focus of my work is Climate Justice. I spent five years working with our former President, Mary Robinson, on climate justice and human rights policy.

I was involved in the negotiation of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and the Sustainable Development Goals. I now want to see these implemented locally.

I’m running as an Independent Community Candidate with the ambition of pushing for participation and human rights-based approaches to decision making in Dublin City Council.

My priorities:

Increase the supply of social and affordable homes
Protect renters and enforce rental legislation
Enable community participation in the improvement of public transport
Drive ambitious local action to make Dublin a world leader on tackling climate change.
Reverse biodiversity loss by creating new allotments and community gardens
Re-municipalise waste collection to end illegal dumping.
Support the inclusive redevelopment of Dalymount Park with cultural and recreational community facilities
Improve the quality of our community spaces by ensuring the full implementation of Local Environmental Improvements Plans

We must provide homes for people

Local authorities must get back into the business of building social housing. As a Councillor, I would push hard for local authorities to be empowered to borrow for housing. Loans would be remunerated using cost rents and the proceeds of property taxes.

I support the adoption of European models of mixed-income renting provided by public bodies. I would advocate for a reduction in property tax redistribution and ringfence the additional funding, along with income from council housing rents, for use on further social housing development.

I want to see Dublin sign on to the Municipal Declaration of Local Governments for the Right to Housing and the Right to the City.

We must protect tenants and control rents

As a renter myself, I understand all too well the uncertainty of renting a home. In the short-term, it is essential that the regulations on short-term letting, like accommodation let through Airbnb, are robustly implemented in order to add stock to the rental market.

I would look to build a coalition of support for a motion to create a publicly searchable index of the rents charged by landlords on a property-by-property basis to be managed by Dublin City Council. This would prevent landlords flouting rules regarding rent increases.

We must act on climate change

I want to see Dublin become recognised as a global leader on climate action within the next five years. Dublin should be a leading member of the Compact of Mayors and the C40 Cities network – a group of cities globally that are taking bold climate action, leading the way towards a healthier and sustainable future.

Sean McCabe

If you are running as an independent candidate in the forthcoming Local or European Elections, perhaps lack resources and would like to share your manifesto (under 500 words) with Broadsheet readers and potential constituents, send your proposals with headshot to broadsheet@broadsheet.ie.

Shakeel Jeeroburkan

Shakeel Jeeroburkan is an independent candidate for the Clondalkin Local Electoral Area in the South Dublin County Council Local Elections on May 24.

Shakeel is a former police officer from Mauritius and runs his own business in Clondalkin.

He writes:

If elected, my priorities as a public representative would be as follows:

1. Housing

My overall priority is to end the homelessness pandemic. The root cause of the pandemic is the inexistent construction of social housing. When supply of housing goes down, demand increase, and so is the price. To reduce the demand and ease private rental price, I will push for the construction of more sustainable social housing and affordable housing for first time buyers.

I will look into derelict and vacant properties and work in partnership with other councillors and stakeholders to have those properties made available for rent or be used as social accommodation.

The magic is simply increase supply but by bypassing the vultures. All this will calm the pressure on Private Rental Accommodation, which will also see a reduction of the rental market price and a drastic fall in homelessness.

To compensate to private small-holding landlords, I will fight for a reduction in the Local Property Tax. This measure will also be of great help to young families across the county who are struggling.

Homelessness has reached a record high, and the trend does not indicate anything but an ongoing catastrophe. I will urge the local authority to issue guidelines and provide training to staff about how to respond to the very specific issues families experiencing homelessness face.

A framework to keep children safe and support families out of homelessness must be introduced urgently to prevent children and parents experiencing additional trauma during an extremely difficult time.

I also commit to end youth homelessness through a local youth homelessness strategy linked to the scheme of letting priorities. To achieve this, I will work closely with third parties like Focus Ireland.

Finally, there is the issue of wheelchair accessible housing for people with physical disabilities. To facilitate independent living, I will push for a minimum of 7% of new stock to be fully wheelchair accessible.

Many people with physical disabilities are facing barriers in finding suitable accommodation due to the lack of wheelchair accessible housing, and forward planning in terms of the appropriate design, planning and provision of wheelchair accessible social housing.

2. Environment

I am a poster-free candidate. Unlike others, I have refused to have my mug on every other pole on the streets. I have not put a single poster in the whole electoral area, not just the voluntary poster free zones.

Instead, I will donate to a homeless charity, the equivalent of a local candidate’s average spend on those posters/flyers within 3 months of taking up seat.

I have pledged to work for the people, not the vultures. I want to set an example to other candidates, that single use plastic posters can be prevented. It is an eyesore and is bad for the environment.

If elected, I am going to propose a plastic ban in my constituency, with the cooperation of local businesses. Many countries have banned plastic, so I don’t see a reason why we cannot follow suit as a small community. We need to tackle climate change before it is too late. We need to look after our future generation.

As regards to littering and dumping, I will push for the council to take back control of bin services, and also to provide for more bins in parks and other public spaces.

3. Anti-social behaviour

Using my experience as a detective, I will work closely with community Garda to curb on anti social behaviour, including cruelty to animals, in the Clondalkin electoral area. To bring an end to the problem, there is a real need of trust and team work between the public and An Garda Síochána.

Cooperation is part of the answer, and I will facilitate this by organising public events where community Garda will attend as well as other community stake holders. Another solution would be to work closely with local schools for early identification, prevention and intervention.

4. Integration

Full integration can take a long time and is a two-way traffic. It’s a long winding road that is achievable and is of huge importance in any community. I will work towards organising different types of events to promote integration, which will see more interaction with people of all social background and ethnicity in our community.

Thank you for reading my manifesto and feel free to get in touch should you have any questions. I can be reached by email hello@shakeel.ie or via my Facebook Pageat link below.

Shakeel Jeeroburkan

If you are running as an independent candidate in the forthcoming Local or European Elections and would like to share your manifesto (under 500 words) with Broadsheet readers and potential constituents, send your proposals with headshot to broadsheet@broadsheet.ie