New Mayor of Kildare wants to develop 'super town' to drive the county forward

New Kildare Mayor Martin Miley Jnr is looking to make the most of his time at the head of the county council, having been voted in as the successor for outgoing Mayor Ivan Keatley at the council office in Naas on Friday.

Speaking to KildareNow following his election, the incoming mayor thanked those who voted for him and spoke of his pride at being elected for the role. His father served for 30 years as a councillor before his death, while his grandfather also held a seat on the council for 15 years. The Athy native will have a one year term in office, and he is looking to hit the ground running.

"I'm honoured to represent the people of Kildare; honoured to represent the people of the Athy electoral area who have put their faith in me for three elections and the Miley family for the last 60 years. I'm very proud to take the office of the county, a very proud county of Kildare," Mayor Martin Miley Jnr told KildareNow.

"A year is a short time, and there are a number of initiatives I would like to see and the continued investment of the council in the infrastructure of Kildare is enormous. The population of the county has increased 70 per cent since 1990 and will continue to increase. We need to ensure that we have work, we have the facilities in place to generate work within the county.

"40 per cent of the workforce works outside county Kildare, so we need to ensure that we have jobs and the environment to create jobs within the county. I suppose how we do that is to create the infrastructure for our roads, our broadband and the services that our council provide. I look forward to working with the staff and the county council to do that."

In an era dominated by politicians and officials from large towns in Ireland's increasingly urban landscape, the fact that Miley Jnr succeeds Cllr Ivan Keatley in the role shows that rural politicians still have a major role to play. Incidentally, both men are intrinsically linked with St Laurence's GAA club, with Keatley donning the red and yellow up until quite recently, while Miley Jnr was the vice-chairman of the club from 2004 to 2008.

"70 per cent of Kildare is urban, 30 per cent is rural, and I suppose the representation on the council is like that as well with a lot of urban councillors and a smaller number of rural councillors," said Miley Jnr.

"I suppose it's ironic that Cllr Keatley and I are probably seen as rural. I've known Cllr Keatley since a young age and he has served the county with distinction. I am proud to take on the chain after him."

The experienced and ambitious local councillor is now planning on bringing Kildare forward, and he outlined some of his plans to do so. They range from increasing the infrastructure around the county to developing better public transport systems, while he also hopes to see a 'super town' in Kildare in the near future.

"66 per cent of the people in Kildare use private transport, so we need to look at putting public transport in our county and to ensure that people have a choice to move around," he said.

"If that's for work or leisure or whatever, we need to have the public services for that.

"For the development of our county, we have no town over 25,000 people, and I suppose that's probably something that we need to look at. We could have a bigger town or a super town for county Kildare to lead us forward and to have that population base that would support future generations and future development.

"One big issue is that 33 per cent(77,832) of the population of Kildare people are under 24 years of age. We need to ensure that we have the facilities in place, whether it's work, schools or college for them in the future."