Meet the candidates: John Clendennen, Fine Gael

Here is our Q&A with John Clendennen, who is running for Fine Gael in Offaly. Hailing from Kinnitty, he is currently a councillor with Offaly County Council, having first been elected to the council in 2014.

On housing, why should the Irish people vote your party back into power when homelessness is at a record level in this country?

Housing has been an emerging issue for the last decade and you have to look at where we came from. We were on the back of a global economic crisis and a lot of tradesmen left the country due to a lack of work, so we have been picking up the pieces ever since, and there have been incremental improvements.

In Offaly alone, only 85 new houses were completed in 2016 whereas 546 were completed in 2023, and we have a large number of housing developments planned or underway. Fine Gael is very committed to the Help to Buy Scheme, and we have added incentives for retrofitting and other measures to help the housing market.

How do you intend to address the economic concerns that many people face due to the rising costs of groceries, insurance, etc?

The government has made huge progress in addressing cost of living issues with specific measures to target the various sectors which are under the most pressure being introduced as part of the budget. Rather than double child allowance payments and other targeted measures being introduced on a one-off basis, I would like to see these being provided on an annual basis so that families can have certainty and stability.

A lot of work has also been done in the area of reducing insurance costs, and a significant body of work has been completed on reforming the whole area of judicial payouts.

Do you think the roll-out of the Just Transition process in Offaly has been a success to date?

I have been critical of the Just Transition process in the past. You can throw all the money you like at a process but what I want to see are pay slips, I want to see a situation where extra jobs are being created for people who have lost their jobs in Offaly. I also acknowledge that, while we have issues around sustainability, there are a lot of people in Offaly, particularly older people, who rely on peat as their main form of heating and I want to be a voice for those people. I don't deny for a second that we have to phase out peat, but I would be concerned at the speed we are doing that, and I think we have to find a workable solution for people who rely on this form of heating.

What one issue would be your top priority if you are elected to the Dáil?

The cost of living needs to be prioritised, and from that everything else flourishes. I would ensure that Offaly continues to be seen as a competitive and attractive place to invest, and to live and work in.

What do you think is the number 1 issue for voters in Offaly?

The cost of living. Having said that, there is a lot of positivity around and I think voters have a level of understanding about the importance of a stable government.