About
Malcolm has been involved in environmental and community activsim since his teens and served on the Board of Friends of the Earth Ireland for eight years. He has a strong interest in Rural Development, The Arts, Disabilities, Social Incluison, Biodiversity, Rural Public Transport, Climate Change, Waste Resource Management. He has recently completed a
BA(Hons) in Rural Development at Tipperary Institute. Having worked for a time as a Graphic Designer, he returned to his first love, gardening and has run a landscape gardening business in Kilkenny for the last fifteen years. It was this passion for community and environmental advocacy that began his path into green politics. Malcolm ran for election in 2004 on a platform of the aforementioned issues, He was first past the post in Kilkenny County Council elections and came in equally comfortably in the Borough Council, not bad for first time out!
He focused on sustainable planning and transport policies that puts community needs first, the provision of facilities for young people, both sporting and non sports oriented, with funding for playgrounds to be met by developers, safe drinking water quality as a right to all, retention of full services at St Luke’s Hospital, a strategic cross sectoral approach to drug and alcohol abuse among young people, Improved kerbside recycling service with access for all to recycling facilities and weight related waste charges, increased participation of the wider community in local decision making and improved facilities for people with disabilities, respecting the principles of social justice and a multi-cultural society in Kilkenny, Development of allotments in land use in Kilkenny, Development of a Skate Park for Kilkenny, Supporting Renewable Energy Producers, Increased Recycling Facilities, Introduction of School Walking Bus, and the foundation of a Planning and Public Procurement Integration forum.
In the local elections of 2009 he increassed his vote, being comfortably retured on both councils again after which he was elected Mayor. Seeing this as a real opportunity to demonstrate how active Green Politics can work, he made the job a full-time one. He held town-hall meetings on public mobility, social inclusion, biodiversity. Hosted a series of ‘Green Screen’ Environmental Movie Nights and held theatre and music events for young people. He launched a number of charity projects rasing about E8,000.
The centre-point of 2009 was a conference he organised and ran on the imiportance of Irish agriculture, small business, community and the relationship between them. http://www.resilientkilkenny.org/
After the year an independent public petition to have him re-elected as Mayor with over 3000 signatories was presented to his council colleagues.
His other passion is music and has served in many of Kilkenny’s seminal bands over the past twenty odd years and is still holding down an eighteen year sunday night residency in the Pumphouse in Kilkenny with fellow gringo’s, the Barflies!
In 2012 he helped organise the 2012 Green Party Convention in Kilkenny
