Kells entrepreneur bids for nomination

Kells-based entrepreneur, Padraig Shine, has confirmed that he is seeking the Fine Gael party nomination for Meath East. The party's selection convention for the forthcoming general election was postponed to this Sunday, 12th December, due to adverse weather last Sunday. The Kells businessman and engineer, who has created many jobs between his plastics and retail businesses over the last number of years, believes there needs to be more people of a business background in the Dail. He says the waste of money and inefficiency in the public sector has to be tackled head-on, starting with politicians' wages, pensions and perks which should be cut straight away down to a minimum of €50,000 per year. “If constitutional reform is needed to take back the extortionate wages and conditions that politicians, senior civil servants and bankers have is required, then I would support such a move. The systematic feathering of their beds has to be unravelled. Employment based on local resources from the personnel that live in an area to the farming telecommunications or broadband resource need to taken advantage of, parish by parish. We need to go back to what makes us great as a people and that is our humanity for each other, our communication skills and our determined hard work,†he said. Mr Shine believes Ireland should renegotiate considerable discounts from the IMF and EU, especially, and hold the ECB to its bank rate. “I feel should look at the possibility of dual currency where deposits and export trade should be left in euros but that all external money and internally used money should be in the punt. This would allow us to set our own internal rate, restrict imports, boost competitiveness and restructure our internal debts such as morgages and car loans with banks we already own in our own devalued currency. “We do not need to leave the euro for this and we do not pay back money that was invested recklessly in banks that were audited externally and were seen to pass all the tests in front of them. We do have to recalibrate our lifestyle but not our happiness. We must ensure that people can hold onto hope for themselves and their children and we must show that the Irish people come first to an Irish government, and not last.†Mr Shine has made a number of appearances on RTE's 'Frontline' programme, where he accused George Lee of “bottling it†and not fighting for the people.