Galway City's newest councillor steps into the breach

Mr Lohan was chosen to fill the void left by his party colleague Anna Marley, who resigned as she was unable to balance family responsibilities with politics.

He was selected at a party convention last week, seeing off competition from Ollie Burke of Shantalla Residents’ Association.

48-year-old Mr Lohan is President of the Galway Council of Trade Unions and Chair of Galway Peoples Resource Centre and is from Menlo, where he lives with his wife Mary and three children. He is also a SIPTU official who represents health workers.

He said job creation and social housing will be key priorities during his time on the Council. He hopes to achieve through including social clauses in public procurement contracts.

Mr Lohan said: “These local bylaws mean local jobs for local people and are already used extensively across the six counties. When a private contractor wins a large construction project they are obligated to hire a local resident for every one million euro of the contract value. There are also provisions for the use of local apprentices.

“They are permissible under EU directives and regulations and had they been on the books for the Seamus Quirke Road project, 16 local residents would have been placed on the job by the private contractor who won the bid,” he said.

He added that waiting lists for housing in Galway are unsustainable, and called for local government to get back into building their own social housing.

“Galway waiting lists are unsustainable. In the 1970s local government in Ireland built 60,000 social homes. Successive governments since then have outsourced housing to the private sector, where low income residents are left at the mercy of landlords and developers. It is a social crime in 21st century Ireland that any family should face homelessness.

“The true measure of how progressive and evolved we are is in how we care for the most vulnerable and weak amongst us,” said Mr Lohan.