Former Athlone councillor highlights need for greater diversity in council chamber

A councillor living in the town of Athlone and more diversity in the council chamber are two things former councillor Louise Heavin would like to see following the next local election.

Reflecting on her five years as a councillor for the Athlone-Moate Municipal District, Louise said some days she misses it and others she doesn’t. However, she would like to see a council more reflective of the area.

"I think it would be great to have a bigger variety of people in the council. Our community is diverse and it's large and I think our council chamber should reflect that. I'm not saying that I should be there, but I would hope that for the next election the results would be different," she said.

Louise was the only female councillor in the district during her time and following the loss of her seat in last year's local elections there are now no women sitting on the district council.

"We have lost out because there is no woman in the chamber and I think there should be three women in the chamber, it shouldn't be down to one woman to represent half the population. I think we've also lost out as a town because we have no councillor living in the town in the chamber at the moment," she said.

"I know the municipal district covers a wider area than the town core itself, but the majority of people in the Athlone Municipal District live in the town, in and around the town, and things like traffic, cycling, walking, parks and open spaces, litter, and air pollution, they affect the people living in the town a lot more than the people coming in for a visit or coming in and out for work."

Speaking about the loss of her council seat, Louise said she had thought she would hold on to it. However, she added that in the run-up to the last election, due to her personal circumstances, she wasn't out canvassing as much as she had been five years previously.

"That probably had an impact, but at the same time I was out there as mayor, I was doing a lot of events and things in the community. I would have thought that profile would have helped, it didn't," she said. "I think it was an anomaly the quantity of votes that Boxer had taken, and even from counting them and looking at his ballots a lot of people just put Boxer number one and no number two or three, so his votes didn't divide as well as they could have done," added Louise.

She also believes more needs to be done to encourage public engagement, to increase people's interest in politics and ensure they have a say in how things are run.

"I don't think people are as engaged as they should be in their local council, and to be fair I would have been as bad prior to being involved in local politics. I think there's an issue with how people can see how they're being represented in the council chamber," said Louise.

She said a big issue is the fact that council meetings are not streamed, as this would give people an opportunity to see how they are being represented.

“I think if people got exposure to the raw meeting structure, how they're being represented, they would vote differently,” she said.

Louise also suggested a more democratic forum that fed into meetings may be a way of engaging the public more, such as holding public meetings on different issues in advance to give people the chance to look at plans and debate them.

“I would have loved to have seen one about the Railway Field Road, the link road. I would have loved to see something like that come forward so that people could get their views collectively together,” she said.

“That consultation was run in August when people were away on holidays. It was very difficult for people to engage with it. The same with the site of the former workhouse. Again, I made a submission on it. There were a few submissions, but it would be great to have had a public meeting and have public debate on it.

Louise added that meeting people and hearing their views was important for councillors and she found the best way to do this was to meet with people.

"I found social media a really difficult place to be in, there's a lot of hate, particularly when you're talking about the expansion of the direct provision centre in Athlone.

"You can't have a rational or reasonable conversation with people on social media. If you put out your views expect them to be misinterpreted, to be twisted, and to have a big backlash, for views like that.

"If you want to tackle issues like that in a respectful way, it's really about going out and meeting people at the doors and talking to them one on one and chatting to them about your perspective and listening to their perspective as well."