New kid who's been around the block

While Fianna Fail leader Micheál Martin was shuffling his deck at Leinster House last Thursday, one of his newest TDs was on the other side of Dublin looking after matters closer to home.
Meath West Deputy Shane Cassells was attending the graduation of his wife, Dr Fiona Healy, who was receiving her Doctorate in Education at DCU.
 There was no promotion for Cassells on this occasion but having waited for over a decade to make it to the big house on Kildare Street his focus is very much on securing the gains he has made in the first instance.
February marked the second anniversary of the Navan man’s election to the 32nd Dail.  Even though he has been in local politics for nigh on 20 years, he is still Meath’s newest deputy, and admits that it took him at least a year to work out the machinations of Leinster House.

"It took that long to learn the ropes, even though I had been in local government for 17 years before that," he says. "Like going into any new job, you have to get your feet. It’s like going from playing club to playing county, you’re on a national stage now."

But he says, if you don’t hit the ground running, it’ll eat you up. "This place would gobble you up if you were not ready for it, you’d be drowned, it’s unforgiving."

The 39 year-old says that politics is a vocation. "It’s a totally different working scenario, not a normal job. It’s very unpredictable, and there are not enough hours in the day to deal with what’s coming at you," he says.

As well as dealing with constituency matters, there can be votes in the Dail, with the house sitting up until 11pm.

"But that’s what I went forward for, i'm enjoying the cut and thrust," the father-of-three says. "And it is a privilege to walk in across that plinth every morning, to see the Tricolour blowing. To be a member of the national parliament, representing your county, is an immense privilege."

Cassells has now held elected office for 19 years, having been first elected to Navan Town Council in 1999, shortly after turning 21, and has fought eight election battles - four for council, three for Dáil, and a senate election.

He eventually made the Leinster house breakthrough in 2016, topping the poll in the Meath West constituency with 10,585 votes.

One thing he cites as critical throughout all that time has been the support of his family, in particular his wife Fiona, and his parents, Oliver and Olive, and siblings Paula and Martin.

"One thing that always sticks in my mind though is that when I lost my father stood outside the count centres in Simonstown in 2005 and Trim in 2011, waiting for me to arrive. They were bloody tough nights and you just want to get the hell out of there," Cassells says.

 "In 2016, though the mood was obviously completely different and there were literally hundreds of Fianna Fáil people outside the count centre waiting for me to arrive and to celebrate the moment. But my dad had walked the few hundred metres from the door of the Trim GAA clubhouse out to the road to meet me when I arrived and it meant I could embrace him first. It was a special moment because no matter whether I'd won or lost, he'd be there. But by God it was good to win."

Having dominated Meath politics for so long, Fianna Fail ended up with no constituency TD in the last Dail.

"In 2007, we were tipping 50 per cent of the vote," Cassells says. "That vote fell off a cliff in 2011. It hurt Fianna Fail and it hurt me in that election. A lot of hard work was put in by the organisation over that following five years. So to win and win in style and top the poll was great, and gave the pride back to the party. I was so happy to be able to do that for them."

Cassells pays tribute to the Fianna Fail organisation in the constituency, led by Eugene Craughan and Michael Thompson, for the turn-around. He was joining a group of new, young Fianna Fail TDs, and says there is great camaraderie as they were all learning together.

Party leader Micheal Martin appointed him to the high-powered Public Accounts Committee (PAC), the watch dog for how government departments spend taxpayers money each year.

For a first time back bencher it was a big endorsement for Cassells to receive and in his first two years he has been involved in some very high profile investigations including NAMA's Project Eagle property portfolio sale in Northern Ireland and the financial accounts of the Garda Training College in Templemore.

For a first time TD to be on the PAC, or part of any constitutional committee, is a vote of confidence," he says, adding that it offers huge opportunities to every week question high ranking officials on how €8 billion of tax payers’ money is being spent. 

"It’s a great learning curve as to how government departments work," he says. "You are getting the budgets of every single department every single week. Not every TD gets that."

The lead questioner rotates every eight weeks, and there is a back-up staff providing research.

During one fiery exchange at the PAC with former Garda Commissioner Nóirin O 'Sullivan, he challenged her on the number of guards on the streets in towns across Meath following several high profile assaults. In conjunction with his work on the PAC he is also a member of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and attended the annual winter meeting in Vienna last month. 

As Cassells recently marked exactly two years to the day since his election to Dáil Éireann, he was on his feet in the chamber challenging Taoiseach Leo Varadkar on his government's proposals to hand a new Dublin Mayor executive control over parts of Meath such as Dunboyne and Clonee.

Cassells put it to Varadkar that he was acting like the" "Roman Emperor Caesar trying to expand his empire beyond the Blanchardstown cinema".

Colourful it may have been but what the exchange illustrated was a deep rooted belief in strong Local Government, which Cassells holds deeply. As his party’s local government spokesperson, he moved his party’s Private Member’s Local Government (Establishment of Town Councils Commission) Bill 2017 to restore town councils which were abolished in 2013.

"Our manifesto promises to strengthen local government and reinstate town councils," he says . "There is a need for a better system. After 17 years on local authorities, I am passionate about it. It is the one strand of government that can deliver improvements on the ground for communities in which people live."

Before Christmas, he appeared at the Housing, Planning and Local Government Committee to answer questions on that Bill.

"It is quite exciting, being a first time TD bringing legislation before the house, and being scrutinised by department officials about the paper, before it moves on to the next stage."

He also recently met with David Franks, CEO of Iarnrod Eireann, about the rail line to Navan, which has "fallen off the face of the earth", and is angry that Meath is getting such few crumbs from Ireland 2040, the National Development Plan. 

"Iarnrod Eireann says that if the government approves and funds the rail line, they’ll build it. The Development Plan was definitely a kick in the teeth to the people of Meath and the three Fine Gael government ministers must have been asleep at the wheel," he said.

The next couple of months will be busy in the run up to the referendum to repeal the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution. 
He says he does not support the Government’s legislative programme to introduce abortion into this country, and voted against the holding of the referendum.  
 “I’m not going to help them by facilitating the passage of legislation through the house that is ultimately seeking to introduce abortion as an end result,” he says.
  “What I find amazing is that there are TDs who are willing to support legislation that is helping to enable this process by voting ‘yes’ a couple of weeks ago but on the other hand are saying they are not happy with the prospective legislation which would come before the house should the referendum pass. Why support the holding of a referendum when it’s clear that the bill before us was to ultimately provide for, in law, the regulation of termination of pregnancy?”
It is an issue that has split the parliamentary party, with the Fianna Fail leader differing in his view from many of his colleagues.

Having won a seat, Cassells has no intentions of losing it, and has been focused on several issues in the constituency such as Garda resources, the restructuring of commercial rates system for businesses, roads funding, the rail line, school building projects and the plight of distressed mortgage holders who are under attack from vulture funds. But he knows who he is answerable to.

"I’m here on behalf of people of Meath West that sent me to be their public representative. The day you forget you here at pleasure of people is day you lose your seat."