One Green Party candidate in Cavan Monaghan

Monagan town native Eddie O’Gara is the sole Green Party candidate to put his name forward for election in the Cavan Monaghan constituency.

Eddie has been very active in the Green Party for a number of years, having helped in local elections and during the last general election.

A landscape architect with Dublin City Council, he studied horticulture, landscape architecture and urban design over 25 years ago. He has worked in the private and public sector in his career to date.

“Professionally I’m at the forefront of where that mix of human activity and the environment meet,” he says.

In the “short time” that he has been working in the field, the father of three reveals he is “already seeing” the impacts of the “biodiversity and climate change crisis”.

“Whether it be diseases hitting plants, effects on soil, changes in weather patterns and the impact on the natural environment,” he lists.

Rooting through different policies of political groups, he said “it was clear” the Green Party “were the only ones who had anything that was prepared to tackle any of these issues.”

Do constituents consider such issues?

The 45-year-old addresss the gap between human activity and human consciousness when it comes to the environment.

“In truth, not really because I think a lot of this stuff happens so slowly and the changes aren’t so noticeable straight away.

“It’s only after you reflect over a period of time that you see what these issues are,” he reasoned, discussing “the absolute truism that we don’t really want to confront change as a species.

“The notion that we have to change what we’re doing is not very appealing to us, we like the idea that we can just continue on as we are,” he said, quickly adding “I’m the same as everybody else in that capacity.

“I think a lot of people are more informed and we know that these changes have to happen and we are trying to make these changes.”

He defines “we think we’re doing enough when the truth is we’re not doing enough.”

“That’s the long and the short short of it,” he outlines.

With a young family at home, he describes how the repercussions are something that “we won’t probably experience in our lifetimes.”

“It’s more a case of what we’re leaving for future generations,” he says.

“I think the green party has strived to do as much as it can but at the end of the day, it still is a junior coalition partner.

“We still don't have a huge mandate across the country.

“There’s no point in pretending that we can change something with such low percentages of people supporting us.

“There’s a heck of a lot more to be done,” he predicted.

The novice Green Party candidate prefers to look beyond the constituency when it comes to a general election, finding the “notion that you look after your particular area or particular region is a really narrow one.”

He finds it “a bit frustrating” that when going for election, peopel consider “what can they do for me?, and what can they do for my area? and what can they dp for my region?

“I find that a bit troubling in the sense that our jobs are primary legislators, and our jobs are primary to impact the entire country.”

A landscape architect by profession and currently working with Dublin City Council, he hails from “a background of really trying to maximise how our towns and villages become really liveable areas.

“I really want to see all our towns and villages maximise their potential as places to live to work in and to visit.

“To do that then, that stimulates economic activity, that helps dereliction, that tackles the housing crisis, and that makes a more desirable place.

“That would be my primary objectives and how I would see that being implemented at a national level is really by how we go about planning,” he said, adding that this would include how funding is allocated, dealing with “transportation issues” and how we build “healthy” streets and communities.

Eddie currently sits on the Monaghan County Council walking and cycling forum and has been nominated to the new Transport Strategic Policy Committee, and previously sat on the Housing Social and Cultural Strategic Policy Committee.

He is involved in “a number” of community sporting organisations and is “heavily involved” in athletics, as well as with parents associations, GAA, gymnastics and Transition Monaghan.