Could you tell me a little about your background in politics?
I probably was a more passive player than anything else. I was a member of the SDLP. I had no intention of ever coming to the fore of politics, then 6, maybe 7 years ago Mark Durkan was stepping down as a member of Derry City council and at a branch meeting this was announced officially and there was a whole hype about who would take his seat.
After some time it was suggested to me that I should throw my hat in the ring and that was the start of it and I eventually let myself be pressured into putting my name forward, but I must say I’m enjoying it immensely.
When did you decide you would run for mayor?
I guess I didn’t really decide, the party decide for you! They suggest who they would like to see coming forward for Mayor, that’s not to say the freedom isn’t there if you would like to put your name forward and certainly the suggestion was made that I would consider it, which I duly did.
I was delighted that the party selected me and I am now Mayor and obviously enjoying it very much, albeit that its early days but it gives you a huge diversity of work, a wonderful opportunity to meet people that you simply wouldn’t meet and I’m talking about the salt of the earth Derry folk who do excellent sterling work that you wouldn’t get to know about unless you were in such a role.
Do you have a particular role model?
I suppose being a woman I always looked to females and I suppose the one woman that did strike me was Mary Robinson as President of Ireland a number of years ago and subsequently another woman has gone on to succeed her, our current President Mary McAleese and yes I think they’re wonderful role models and I would like to aspire to some of their achievement but in a much more local level.
What would you like to change within the city?
Lots of things, I suppose my three core messages for the year are one a strong united voice for Derry and that’s basically to deal with the economy ensuring that everyone is on the same message and we get effective delivery for the people of the city.
The second one is for a strong inclusive shared city for all and sadly in recent weeks we have seen where we need to do a hell of a lot more work in that area and thirdly for cleaner and safer streets for the people of Derry and I think that those three key messages encompass all of the daily bread and butter issues that effect the people living in our city.
What work have you previously been involved in relation to young people in this city?
I suppose as a rookie councillor a number of years ago I remember reading a press statement saying the Nucleus, operating out of Pump Street was due to close due to lack of funding and Mark Durkan and the assembly were up and running at the time.
I remember ringing up John Tierney and saying listen this is the only city centre venue that I am aware of that caters for young people and their issues and their concerns and I understand that they are going to close down from a lack of funding.
Subsequently John and Mark got together and we got that funding expanded and they were able to keep that facility open so that was my first real insight to the excellent work that the managers and organisers of that community were doing to address the needs of young people in the city and unfortunately that has fallen by the way side, but we have the Shadow Youth Council up and running and I have a keen interest in what they’re doing.
I think that they are an excellent delivery vehicle for getting core and key messages out and I think no one can deliver messages to young people like their own peers and I certainly will work closely with them. Indeed we have the Junior Mayor with us today and I look forward to working with them through out the year.
I think that we can not emphasise enough how important it is to listen to our young people and not talk at them but with them and try to engage with them and try and get them to engage with the wider young community because sometimes we talk about young people and we’re only targeting a small group when we need to be getting out to that wider audience and we need to engage them in activities and indeed in the life of the council.
What do you see as the major issues for young people in the city?
I think in fairness to young people they are under severe pressure at school and outside school there are a lot more challenges for young people today than when I was growing up. There is also a lot less discipline there than when I was growing up.
We were fearful when we were growing up that if you stepped out of line that either it was our parents or our school teachers would find out and if you were reported at home to have gotten a slap at school well you didn’t get it for nothing so you were likely to get another one, but I do think there is an awful lot of challenges for young people nowadays.
I think there are severe pressures there, not only do they have to perform well at school, sometimes there is an over emphasis on that, not everyone is going to go down the road of academia and I’m glad that the curriculum is changing, which will allow more for those who are not going to go down the road of academia to be more vocational and to get involved in trades and particularly for young girls with hairdressing and dressmaking.
They may become the young entrepreneurs of the next generation and indeed we are told that our economy is heavily dependant on much public sector money and I certainly would welcome the development of encouraging our 14 year olds who aren’t going to become A level and O level students to go get out and get into the right environment and from that perspective its can be quite opportunistic for those youngsters to be able to engage in that.
The peer pressure that is out there with drugs and alcohol are severe and thankfully there are only a minority few going through the net but I think there are huge pressures put on young people these days.
What do you propose to do about these issues in your term as mayor?
Well there are a number of issues that I do want to address and certainly this is only my fifth or sixth week as mayor and I have a plan in a grid and have to obviously look at all the logistics before I go in to talk to any group and know my own ground and have my own research properly carried out before I address those issues but yes I will be addressing those issues probably from September onwards
July and August are a good time to be able to work with the community, address some of the issues but move them along more rapidly come September when all the young people are back at school. I look forward to engaging with them at that time.
About this article
This article was written by Emma Arbuckle and published in the Derry Journal.
