Bundoran teacher to contest Leitrim Co Council election as Independent

A Bundoran based secondary school teacher at Magh Ene College, James Gilmartin is to run as an Independent candidate for the Manorhamilton Electoral Area in North Leitrim, where he lives.

Mr. Gilmartin, married with three young children, says he "passionately believes in the importance of encouraging young people to achieve their full potential".

A popular science and agricultural science teacher at the south Donegal College, he was also behind an initiative to plant more than 1,000 native Irish trees on the grounds of the Bundoran school last year.

He farms on land that has been in his family for seven generations and is an active member of Leitrim Sustainable Agricultural Group and currently a national Farming for Nature Ambassador.

As a suckler and sheep farmer, he believes in robust support for this sector which is the backbone of the rural economy in North Leitrim. Strong representation to voice concerns at council level is needed to deliver for this sector with improved conditions via support structures such as the Sheep Welfare Scheme and Suckler Carbon Efficiency Programme to be targeted at national level.

Mr. Gilmartin continued: "One of the reasons I decided to run was because both as a farmer and as an Agricultural Science teacher locally I am acutely aware of the particular challenges that farmers face in this part of the world and how a one-size-fits-all approach to agriculture cannot work.

"I’ve farmed all my life with my Dad, aged 92, and I currently run the farm with my extended family. The small family farm is a keystone in this area and needs protection. It's about making agriculture more prosperous for young men and women alongside those currently farming - to make it not only a viable career but also one to aspire towards in this wonderful part of the world."

He sauid that working as a teacher, "you are aware that you have to create the environment where young people can put down roots in North Leitrim". He stressed that rural one-off housing is vital as well as sufficient housing within our towns and villages.

"It’s about joining the dots where we create the employment opportunities for young people to stay and start families of their own alongside providing them with the opportunities to build, buy or renovate a home for them and their families.

Proper infrastructure such as reliable transport services and high speed broadband will further create the suitable conditions to work and live in our area.

He also pointed out that the retail sector and small and medium sized enterprises are also in need of support. They play a vital role both in employment and in a thriving community oftentimes having to compete with much larger corporations who can absorb increasing costs more easily.

Alongside financial incentives he feels it is of huge importance to create towns and villages that are "amenable, accessible and well serviced by transport services in getting people into our town centres and creating that sense of community",

Having been actively involved in Local Sport all his life, Mr. Gilmartin is also passionate about creating new facilities alongside improving current ones with the aim to further develop a resilient and vibrant community.

Two other important groups that he is keen to support are the very young and the elderly. Children in their formative years need to be looked after both through time appropriate access to Assessments and Services and through proper Childcare Provision.

On the other end of the scale, Carers are another critical service within the community, Mr Gilmartin personally adding that his elderly father and mother "created a great life for us and made a sustained community effort themselves, they need to be looked after; in general elderly people who have contributed to society in the area need to have access to Homecare and Home Help. If we didn't have carers we'd be in dire straits".

Following on from this he also stressed the importance of supporting local family-run nursing homes, "They are an extremely important part of communities and also require proper support and incentives to survive. The net result of losing them would be new bigger nursing homes being built in large urban centres which will have numerous detrimental effects including the distance to travel for regular family visits”.

Mr. Gilmartin is more recently involved in a selection of local community groups which were formed to counteract the threat of extractive industries on the land. He is currently Chairperson of Treasure Leitrim.

He feels North Leitrim has been targeted by outside interests whose only concern is to make a profit from the land without contributing to the local community, oftentimes leaving environmental destruction in their wake. He highlights the fact that large swathes of North Leitrim under Sitka Spruce Forestry are actually owned by multinationals and private investment funds who exploit the system to plant the land using State Aid.

This drives up the price of land, causes huge environmental impact and decimates communities. Small family farms and young farmers in particular cannot survive with this unfair competition, and if elected he will strive to counteract this most devastating threat to the communities of North Leitrim.

Following on from this, Mr. Gilmartin has worked strongly against the imminent threat of Gold Mining in the area. "Ireland is very much underdeveloped for mining and in the last three years Prospecting Licences (PL) have been given out like confetti by the Minister of Environment".

He said that the necessity to source our own minerals is the main reason given by those in power for these licenses but the actual reason is completely profit driven. In the main the companies who apply for these licenses are searching for gold and silver.

The mining process involved in extracting these metals is "extremely toxic and environmentally unsound" and if it was allowed to occur in this region it would have devastating adverse consequences for generations to come. He noted that 27 percent of Ireland is under Prospecting compared to just 3 percent of the UK.

"They come in; try to make as much money as possible from the area and then leave it in rag order and move on."

Mr. Gilmartin stressed that he is not "anti-anything" and that his motto is:

"When you fight against something you focus on what you hate, when you fight for something you focus on what you love".