‘The Northside community is great’: Cork TD's parliamentary assistant loves Leeside

“CORK sucked me in, and I haven’t left,” explained Dee Moore, who works as a parliamentary assistant with Sinn Féin TD for Cork North Central Thomas Gould.

Ms Moore, who hails from Dublin, initially moved to Cork to pursue a Masters in University College Cork (UCC) in 2018, before starting work with Deputy Gould in June 2020.

“I had a great aunty from Cork, so I used to spend a bit of time in Cork over the summer. I am based in Cork now five years. I came to do a Masters in UCC in 2018. I did a year in UCC doing post grad research in Youth Justice. I started working full-time in June 2020 with Thomas,” she said.

Ms Moore, who generally works most of the time from the constituency office in Shandon Street, said she loves the sense of community on the northside.

“The people are brilliant and the community on the Northside is great. It is a real community. It is a really nice way to work. Everybody seems to know everybody. Coming from Dublin we don’t have that. BusConnects was a great way to see people come together with their communities and how much they care about their communities. It is nice when you can see that in the Northside.”

Being in the Shandon Street office suits both parties perfectly she said. 

“I am based mainly in Cork city. I go to Dublin if needed. We found that we work very well with me based in Cork and, especially on the days when Thomas is in Dublin, to have someone based in the constituency particularly if there are things to be done and meetings that are happening that he can still be represented.

“It is always busy in the office,” she added. 

“Our office is open five days a week from Monday to Friday. We have Ken Weldon, who mans the phones, and he deals with people when they call in. We also have our two councillors, Mick Nugent and Kenneth Collins, who are always available. Thomas, Ken, and Mick are brilliant. They work so hard. We meet once a week with all the councillors and area reps in the constituency. It is that ability to work together that I think is a real asset to us.”

GREW UP IN POLITICS

Ms Moore’s roots are firmly enshrined in the republican movement and politics. She revealed that her first memory of political activism occurred at the tender age of six. 

“I was always into politics. I grew up in politics. I was six years old when I first went out leafleting,” she recalled. “I have always been involved. My family would be republican and would be involved in politics.”

A key remit of Ms Moore’s role as a parliamentary assistant is on drafting policies and raising the concerns of constituents with the various Sinn Féin members who can then raise the issues with the relevant stakeholders through the Dáil or council meetings.

“It is a very policy focused role,” she explained.

“Thomas is the spokesperson on addiction, recovery, and wellbeing. I would help to write and draft a lot of the policy around that. He sits on the housing committee so when legislation comes forward, I will write the amendments and we will go through them together. One of the benefits from being in the office is that you can let the real people influence the policy because you are hearing the people come in. You are seeing them.

“We notice that people would be coming in an awful lot about some issue — so one of the things last year would have been the local authority home loans,” she added.

“We instantly knew this was a bigger issue, so we started to do a bit of work around it in the Dáil and raised it that way. Sometimes it is the smaller stuff that maybe we don’t even look for any recognition for, but we will notice a flaw in something. You can raise that, write a letter, or make a phone call and you can fix small things, but those things can be life-changing for people. The smallest change can have the biggest impact on people. That is nice to see,” she said.

Ms Moore admits she loves her job, but the demanding and emotional nature means that she does take work home, which is perfectly okay with the political enthusiast.

“It is full on, but I absolutely love it. No day is the same, but I like that. We hear a lot of tough stories and you do take it home,” she explained. 

“I don’t think it is the kind of job you can turn off from. Everywhere you look there is politics. When you are seeing the lived realities of politics it just becomes so ingrained in what you do,” she added.

“I am a full-time parliamentary assistant but I am also a political activist. It is a big part of my life — whether I was working for Tommy or not it would be a big part of my life. It is not a job I want to leave in work either. I am happy for it to be a part of my life.”

Another part of Ms Moore’s remit includes writing up a newsletter for Deputy Gould which keeps his constituents up to date with his political work. The newsletter allows them to communicate directly with people, she explained.

“Covid was difficult as we couldn’t connect with people by knocking on their doors,” she said. 

SOCIAL MEDIA BALANCE

“Social media became a really big thing. We are trying to do a hybrid of social media and getting back out meeting people. We also have newsletters. I would write the newsletter up which is a great way of letting people know what is being done.”

With Mr Gould being the Sinn Féin spokesperson on addiction, recovery, and wellbeing, his team attends regular meetings with representatives from addiction services.

“We try to meet at least once a week with an addiction service because you learn so much from people on the ground,” said Ms Moore. “Things that you would never think of, they would come to you and say this is becoming a problem. We stay connected with them. We would have a lot of engagements with the Department of Housing and with the Department of Health, but across the board with all the departments.

“TDs during the summer are busier than ever,” she added. “It is a great time to do policy work however, as this is very hard to do when the Dáil is sitting. We do a lot of budget work in the summer. Sinn Féin launch a fully costed, alternative budget. We cost that with the Department of Public Expenditure. We are working on that at the minute. We do a lot around addiction, but we also team up with Eoin Ó Broin and do work around the housing budget,” Ms Moore stated further.

Her role as a parliamentary assistant requires her to travel to the Dáil on occasion and, while she lives the buzz of Leinster House, Ms Moore admitted it is also nice to escape from this bubble as well.

“It is a nice place to work, and we have a lovely team in Leinster House. It is a great buzz and a bit of a bubble. It is nice to get away from the bubble. Thomas on a Thursday is mad to get back to Cork. He itches for Cork,” she said.

Sinn Féin is currently riding high with great consistency in opinion polls and is widely tipped to be in government after the next general election. Ms Moore said people are recognising that Sinn Féin are at the heart of communities.

“It is no real surprise how well Sinn Féin are doing,” she said. I grew up in a community that Sinn Féin were very grounded in. I always knew that Sinn Féin were at the heart of my community. I see the same thing in Cork. I think it is nice to see that people are recognising that, but I think they were always going to see that. People want their voice to be heard. Thomas represents the people of Cork North Central because he is at the heart of their community, and he believes in the community.”