*June Dillon (AON). Photograph: John Mangan
DECLINE of services in rural Clare is impacting on all ages but is leaving a particular scar on the elderly, first-time election candidate June Dillon (AON) has warned.
Living in West Clare for the past fourteen years, the Kilmurry McMahon woman is a native of East Cork. She is Aontú’s first General Election candidate in Clare and only the party’s second ever candidate to contest an election in the county. She officially joined Aontú earlier this year.
Since moving to the county, “I can see the decline over that time from when I first came in the rural areas with services and things closing down”.
She continued, “Shops closing down, post offices closing down or the post office going into the corner of a shop or that kind of thing. The bank closed down in Kilkee, schools have closed down like Tullycrine school down by us which amalagamated with Kilmurry McMahon to become one school. We can football teams merging because they haven’t the numbers to field on their own, so I would see a steady decline in lots of different ways, socially, building and businesses, I would see that and with the healthcare side of things I’d see people getting very stressed about healthcare and having to go down to Limerick”.
An admiration for Peadar Tóibín inspired June to join the party. “I think he’s very common sense, he holds people to account, he’s the only one you will see in the Dáil Chamber when there’s no one else there asking parliamentary questions and he looks after people, he looks for groups that are vulnerable, he asked the Minister for Justice about children who were going missing in care, dying in care and being injured in care, he has brought a lot of that up and he has brought up a lot about immigration figures”.
Married to Kieran Dillon, June felt now was the time she could try make a change to improve the quality of life and services in the county. “I know in Clare, people can be very much Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael but I thought this was something new and I suppose I was at the stage of my life where I was having family and things like that, you get more mature and you look into these things. I suppose that’s what I liked is that he looks for more vulnerable people and he looks after them”. Her post as a community health nurse meant she ruled out the prospect of contesting the local elections.
Dillon continued, “I was reading your paper and they were predicting two Fianna Fáil and two Fine Gael, maybe it will happen but I’ve to speak up for the people who need it and I do see people who are vulnerable and they need help, look if I can use this platform that whoever is elected in will hear a bit of it and try get a fleet of wheelchair taxis in around West Clare and a decent road from Ennis to Kilrush, our roads are shocking, if you want to go anywhere at all, people have different activities in Ennistymon or Shannon but the road over to Ennis is a disaster”.
Aontú’s formation came after Tóibín over his pro-life stance in advance of the Eighth Amendment referendum. Dillon claimed she “hadn’t heard” that this stance is one of the main items people associate with the political party. “I hear people talking about housing. I hear people talking about immigration. I hear people talking about cost of living. I hear people talking about health care, but that doesn’t come up. People have views on immigration. They have views on housing. They have views on agriculture. They have views on cost of living. So we have all those as well. Yeah. But, like, everyone in has a set view on the right to life. We’re very much about government accountability and people know that. We’re very much about, government spending and wastage. We’re very much about that and so are people, and they hear us more talking about that. We’re very much about the lack of housing and the people suffering price of rents and mortgages”.
Farmers in rural Clare are “on their knees with bureaucracy,” she claimed. “They’re trying to bring the Mercosur Trade Deal, they’re trying to undercut farmers here and that is a worry to farmers, they hardly even have an income to live on, like their income is down a third or something and like they have a nearly twenty percent suicide rate, if you look up HSE dying to farm you see there’s the report on farmers and their mental health so I suppose people have a lot of issues, and that’s what we are dealing with on the doorsteps, and that’s what we want to change”.
Having first completed a Bachelor of Arts in Public Administration, June worked in offices before travelling to Ethiopia and then returning to study to become a nurse. She recently completed a masters in older person rehabilitation from UCC. “I saw what’s needed and it’s clear older people are just left behind. A lot of it is due to transport issues. They can’t even get to appointments. They can’t get to any activities, like the Kilrush Resource Centre has brilliant activities for older people but they can’t get from their laneway down to the public transport to get there, they’re not able so rural transport is a massive thing for older people and it really excludes them from society”.
She continued, “You cannot get a wheelchair taxi from Kilfenora to Loop Head to Ennis, there was a lovely old lady Peggy Morgan, she was 102, she was coming to the Patrick’s Day Parade, but she used to have to get a wheelchair taxi from Kilfenora down to Kilmurry McMahon to bring her to places. Older people are so forgotten and you see because there’s no work back here, their families are all going away working and so the poor families are worrying about their parents, and the parents are at home and trying to cope, it’s just it’s very isolating. I’ve seen enough what I feel really now, an awful lot of social isolation, yeah, in West Clare and access to services. It’s a huge problem”.
Expanding on how the elderly have been forgotten, June commented, “we’re closing banks, post offices, garda stations are being closed. These are kind of the lifelines in the little villages that keep older people getting out. We have people who can drive, get in and get out, they might only drive locally but they don’t want to drive to Ennis because it’s a busy road so they’re happy to drive the few miles down to the local shop but if the local shop is closing, the bank is closing and the post office is closing where are they going to go and that’s for people who are able to drive”.
She added, “I realised I need to take my chance to speak, I just find the older people that I go out to and other people, they’re very vulnerable, there’s an awful lot of vulnerable people out there, and I just think that they’re forgotten. And like I said, it’s because of social participation, really, and they’re very lonely, you know. Like, if I could if there’s one thing I could do, if I could get a few wheelchair taxis around Clare, around West Clare and I’m sure it’s not just here. It’s the whole because I worked over in Shannon for a while, if I could get a fleet of wheelchair taxis, I’d be so happy”.
On how an East Cork woman goes about trying to change the ‘engrained political tradition’ in Clare, she remarked, “it doesn’t matter if you’re East or West, it doesn’t matter if you are Bhamjee or de Valera coming in, it depends, some people will vote with party, but some people that I’m meeting are saying now that they don’t vote with party anymore, they vote on the person. All I can do is present what I’m interested in, present what I you know, want to help, and I’m under no illusions like I said, I’m no political heavyweight, but I really care about things so that’s why I’m standing and trying to make the future a bit better for my kids anyway because it’s easy to give out about things, it’s so easy, I could sit at home now and I could be on to my colleagues and I could be giving out about this and giving out about that and my friends, worried about this and worried that and where they’ll get me. They will just avoid me whereas now they’re avoiding me for different reasons because I’m looking for them to go leaflet dropping or canvassing but seriously I have to give it a chance, I have to be able to tell my kids I tried my best for them”.
June Dillon
Occupation – Community nurse at Kilrush Health Centre
DOB – 08/06/75
Party – Aontú
Top priority – Carers and family carers
