Thomas has been a councillor for 10 years. He was originally a Fianna Fáil member before resigning earlier this year after facing disciplinary action for comments he made about a fire that destroyed a hotel that had been due to house asylum seekers. His priorities are planning, housing, transport and farming.

I have been a councillor for 10 years and I am a firm believer that there is a fundamental reset needed when it comes to the way that Galway is represented at national level. We need to change the way that we approach health issues, transport, planning and housing.

There are several. From my perspective we need to put the family at the centre of policy decisions. We need to allow them to live, work, care for and socialise in those areas that they are from and we need to provide them with the health services, roads, schools and community facilities for that to happen. There is a serious imbalance in the way that policy is skewed towards the eastern part of the country with Galway at the bottom of the pile when it comes to priority. Planning policies over the last 50 years have failed. Our cities are full to the brim, there are insufficient transport structures, no access to GP’s or health services, a lack of community facilities and families being forced apart due to lack of housing. Let’s look at balanced regional development. Let Galway and Connemara be part of the solution and spend money there accordingly.