Bailieborough-Cootehill MD Candidate: Kristofer Shekleton

Born and reared in Kingscourt by his mother and grandparents, Kristofer's professional background is in the culinary sphere having worked in numerous high-end restaurants in the region. He switched to become a freelance lobbyist, although he occasionally cooks professionally for functions. His political background was with Fianna Fáil but he is running as a candidate under the Independent Ireland banner.

How do you unwind?

I love to watch all kinds of sport and socialise and have a pint with my friends. I love food and travel and reading and learning more about food and different world cultures - I get out of my headspace, so I could be in Italy today or France tomorrow.

Why should people vote for you?

I'm very grounded. I like to hear commonsense, speak commonsense, see commonsense.

Something I can bring to the table is organisation. The government is so out of touch - there's a disconnect and something needs to happen where people stand up and say: Enough is enough. I'm not saying that councillors aren't doing that at the moment but we need more stronger voices around the table. That's the main reason, I would be a very strong voice for everybody, especially the vulnerable and squeezed middle.

What will you do to address housing supply?

A lot more social and affordable housing needs to built and it needs to continue at a rate and it cannot slow down again. We can't afford to have breaks in the housing supply like we had during the crash and Covid. That can't be allowed to happen again. We also need to address the red tape around planning permission. It's crazy what's going on. People can't get planning for houses on their own land or their parents' land and we need to cut the bureaucracy around that.

Has Ireland taken in enough refugees?

Ireland has taken in more than our fair share. I'm absolutely not anti-immigrant by any means but we look at what's happening at the Grand Canal with 110 tents being cleared out, the Dublin homeless people were cleared out as well. Those who were migrants were offered accommodation and put on buses. Were the Dublin homeless people given the same offer? I don't know the answer.

I'm not someone who would say Ireland is full, but we don't have the housing, we don't have the services in local communities. And the government is bussing them into small places that just don't have the services.

We have to put a stall on it. We have to speed up the assessment process - get people screened and put them through the process and, if they are not ticking the boxes, they need to be deported.

I wouldn't be ant-immigrant, I think we need to stall it, and in time we might be able to start again and take a little, but at the moment as it stands we have more than our fair share.

What's your main campaigning issue?

There's a lot of stuff coming up about health and disability. People aren't receiving the treatments they need. GPs are out the doors - there are lots of people with disabilities and illnesses not being seen quickly enough.

Community policing is another one, we need to get more gardaí onto our streets and into rural areas because drugs crime is off the charts. How that's going to happen I don't know. We need more recruitment, more incentives to recruit and retain them. The drug dealers are getting away with far too much, and the users, the addicts, they can't get the treatment that they need - which is mental health and addiction services.

Should biodiversity/climate crises top the agenda?

I think Ireland is doing way more than other countries that are bigger and produce a lot more carbon emissions and waste. Rural Ireland is suffering from what's happening - the farmers are getting a seriously raw deal and it's going to hurt them and have long-term damage.

We all need to play our part, and most ordinary people do that - it's part of life now, but just taxing everything for carbon emissions is going to have consequences.

Who in the political sphere has influenced you most?

John Hume would be up there - what he did for this country in the Peace Process will stand to us forever. He was one of the finest politicians and political minds that this island has ever produced. Albert Reynolds, John Bruton, Bertie Ahern, Mo Mowlam all played their part - I would lump everybody in who was involved in the peace process because it's something we can never ever go back to.