"I'm delighted, I'm thrilled" - Fine Gael's Joe Neville on election success in North Kildare

Elected in Punchestown with a total of 8641 votes, Fine Gael's Joe Neville says he plans to “hit the ground running” in his new role as TD for Kildare North.

The outgoing Mayor of Co Kildare told Kildare Now he is “delighted” with the election result, and is looking forward to working on some of the key issues that formed his election campaign.

A former Leixlip town councillor for five years and county councillor on the Celbridge-Leixlip municipal district for 10, Deputy Neville has built up a strong base across the constituency.

This week, he speaks to Kildare Now about election success, and his plans for the next five years.

“I'm delighted, I'm thrilled, delighted with the results of the election and obviously thinking of my fellow candidates as well, Evie Sammon and Bernard Durkan. Bernard had made such a huge contribution over the years so unfortunately we didn't get another Fine Gael TD or two across the line, but obviously I'm delighted with my own result”, he says.

“I ran a good campaign and I was able to get the votes to get over the line.

“First on the agenda to be honest is just trying to hit the ground running, when you get elected as a TD it's a very different role than being a councillor, so it's just trying to get a team put together and figure out how it's going to work for me for the next five years ahead.”

Some of the issues Deputy Neville said he will now focus on include infrastructure in Kildare North, a second bridge for Celbridge, the DART+ programme and more school places.

He says he also wants to ensure that any government talks between Fianna Gael and Fianna Fáil have those items on the agenda.

“I just want to get straight into it, it's going to be a busy few weeks and ultimately five years, so I'm going to try and hit the ground running”, he says.

Deputy Neville admits he ran a tough election campaign, though points out that “every election is tough.”

“It was my first time doing a general election though, so it was very different. With a local election, a candidate can do an awful lot themselves, you can do most of the canvassing, you can do your social media and put up your posters, but ultimately you can't do that for a general election, it's just the scale of the area is so much bigger and there's just so much more to do.

“So for me that was the toughest element of the campaign, was going from a local election set up to a general election set up. They're two completely different things and I had to work hard at it, but it did work and I got elected but it was very tough obviously.”

Deputy Neville said thanks must go primarily to the people who voted for him, but also to his canvassers and extended team of supporters.

“I got great support in the local elections, but ultimately to get around 8,500 votes and 5,500 number one preferences, that's really great and I just want to thank people for that.

“It's people who canvassed for me, people who dropped leaflets for me or spoke highly of me, whatever that was it meant that II got the votes that I did. Ultimately that's put me in the position where I can now work on behalf of the people of North Kildare for the next five years.”