*Dinny Gould. Photograph: Páraic McMahon
CREE’s Dinny Gould (IND) is set to shake up the election race in West Clare after officially confirming his candidacy.
Well-known businessman Dinny in an exclusive interview with The Clare Echo has announced he will be contesting the local elections in the Kilrush local electoral area. “I’ve a lot of experience, I’ve met and know a lot of people, that is why I decided to go for election to Clare County Council because I feel I have something to offer the people”.
Born in Duagh in North Kerry in 1957, Dinny moved to West Clare in 1979, living in Kilmihil while he worked in Moneypoint, twelve months later he purchased a house in Cree and is still there forty four years later.
After working in Moneypoint for three years, Dinny spent over a decade working in the mobile catering business. “I went bookmaking then, we had a souvenir shop in the Cliffs of Moher, a trailer and we acquired the shop off Clare County Council, we have it on a thirty five year lease, my daughter runs it now”.
His work as a bookie has not alone strengthened his profile in the county but nationwide. “I was a sole-trader bookmaker working all the race courses in Ireland, Punchestown, Killarney, Galway, Tralee, everywhere, Limerick, Tramore. I’ve slowed down a small bit since and sold some of my pitches, I’ve only five pitches left in the racecourse and a pitch in the dogtrack in Limerick”.
All three of his and Caroline’s daughters run different businesses, Sarah has the beauty salon in Cree, Karen operates their shop at the Cliffs of Moher and Tara oversees the takeaway in Cree. Pressures on businesses are not waning, he noted, “It is getting harder and harder, everything is getting more expensive with rates and everything. Being in business myself I’d be trying to help other business people”..
A member of Fine Gael since the 1980s, Dinny would have ran for the party had he been asked. “I thought I might be added to the Fine Gael ticket, I’m a member of Fine Gael for the last thirty years, I’m a personal friend of Joe Carey’s, I’ve worked with him and canvassed with him, I thought I had something to offer, I didn’t get on the Fine Gael ticket, I wasn’t asked nor I didn’t look to go on, I just said I’d have a go on my own as an Independent and see what happens from there”.
He told The Clare Echo that he could have put his name forward for a Fine Gael selection convention but he opted against doing so. “I thought I might be asked, if they asked me I would have went but there was no pressure put on me to go so I thought they might have been happy enough to run their own candidates, I didn’t want to rock any boats so I left them off”.
Attempts to secure a Fine Gael nomination in 2009 were thwarted, he admitted, “In 2009, when I went for the Council there was the members of the Fine Gael party who said there was a court case pending and that I couldn’t run, that is why I didn’t run, I let it go and I worked with Joe Carey, I thought this was my time because I retired last year and I said I’d have more time”.
This case was settled at the High Court and stemmed from a legal action over a failed drug test on a winning greyhound Boavista owned by a three-man syndicate. The members of which were Dinny, greyhound trainer Pat Curtin and former professional footballer turned actor Vinnie Jones. No adverse findings were made personally against the trio. A High Court sitting in January 2013 quashed the decision of the Irish Coursing Club (ICC) inquiry committee in August 2011 to disqualify Boavista.
On his election odds, Dinny stated, “I think I will get a good enough vote, I’d prefer if I was going for Fine Gael but now that I’m not I’ve no other choice but to go as an Independent, I’m happy enough to go Independent”. He added, “If I am elected I will work hard for the locality and all of West Clare, every inch of it”.
Wastewater schemes need to come under greater focus, he maintained. “If I was elected there’s a lot of things to be looked into in West Clare, the biggest problem in West Clare is that we’ve no sewerage in some of our villages, my own village of Cree is only a small village and it wouldn’t cost an awful lot to put sewerage in. Cooraclare have no sewerage but have been granted that is going ahead. Carrigaholt, Labasheeda, Knock village none of them have sewerage, I can’t understand that it has not been done”.
He added, “I have a big profile but I’m more interested in getting things done. The rural villages and towns of West Clare are falling asunder, something has to be done, we lost our post office in Cree, we lost one of our public houses in Cree, we’ve nothing in Cree only one pub, one shop and a takeaway”.
The decision of Cllr Bill Chambers (FF) to retire last November has influenced Dinny’s entry into the race, he commended Bill’s working in getting Cooraclare included in a pilot for a wastewater scheme along with Broadford. “A lot of the people back there said that we need a councillor, I said I would have a go and see what happens. I met a lot of people, when there was nobody in the parish to take up the seat it went to the next parish in Doonbeg”.
Gould stressed, “The sewerage scheme is granted for Cooraclare but it needs to be brought on faster, it is too slow, what is the hold up for. We need new developments in West Clare, we need to keep the youth here, there is nothing happening, everything is dead back here, then when the tourists come in we’ve no way of keeping them for a few hours, we need to get them stopping in different places but they come off the ferry, go up to Kilkee, up through Quilty and no stopping, buses and cars lines of them every hour. There needs to be something done about the coastal erosion in Doughmore all the way up to Quilty, anyone can see it is eating away all the time, after any storm look at the harm being done”.
“What I’d like to see is if we can keep the tourists here, the amount of tourists that come up across the ferry and through West Clare straight up to the Cliffs of Moher and Doolin, we’ve nothing in West Clare to keep the people here, if we only got a third of them to stop it would be money for the area but there’s nothing there, we’ve a great achievement with a train station in Moyasta, it is just sitting there and going nowhere, the proposed Greenway why hasn’t it started, I’m driving on the road every day, you can see the one coming all the way to Limerick and they are working on it, why can’t we get something done back West”.
Insufficient funding is received within Clare to improve roads across the county, he maintained. “The road from Cree to Kilrush is a disgrace, it is terrible and nothing done, they do their best, they come out patch a hole, they did a water scheme lately, if you come from Cooraclare to Cree up to where the water scheme finished it is all little squares where they dug the holes instead of doing the full road”.
