FINE GAEL Senator Noel O’Donovan has spoken out against using Compulsory Purchase Orders (CPOs) to push the Skibbereen to Baltimore greenway project through.

‘It’s never about it going through the middle of fields,’ he said in an in-depth interview with The Southern Star.

‘It’s about consulting land owners and accessing on boundaries and where possible on roadways. The council should be engaging properly with people as I’ve done with land owners north of Skibbereen, also meeting them with engineers.’

The Rosscarbery-based politician was raised in Rossmore, Clonakilty, and went to school in Dunmanway. Last year he was nominated by the Taoiseach to join the Seanad.

He says his political ambition was sparked as a teenager after joining Ballygurteen Race Committee.

He also credits his great-granduncle, Sinn Féin politician Seán Hayes, who took part in the War of Independence, became editor of The Southern Star in 1917 and a year later was elected as West Cork’s first TD at the age of 28.

Sen O’Donovan, who’s also an admirer of Michael Collins, was 21 when first elected to Cork County Council in 2011, becoming Ireland’s youngest councillor.

At the time he was still revising for his final exams at UCC where he studied Commerce, the Co-operative Movement and Food Business.

When there’s time out from politics, he says he enjoys fishing, gardening, reading books about history and going to concerts with his wife Natasha who works as a garda.

The couple married ten months ago.

He says a strong moral compass guides his decisions in the political sphere and in life. And it also shaped a different career path when he quit politics in 2017 after six years as a councillor.

Before getting involved in his uncle’s retail business, O’Reilly’s Londis in Rosscarbery, Noel was a garda stationed in New Ross in Co. Wexford, for four years.

He said the role was challenging at times, especially when cases involved mental health.

‘It was extremely difficult seeing the deficiencies in the system,’ he said.

‘I remember people, who are unfortunately no longer with us, that I would have tried to help. But the service at the time didn’t protect them.’

Now sitting on Fine Gael’s Justice Committee, he says tackling gender-based and sexual violence is a priority.

He praised the family of Valerie French from Leap, killed by her husband in June 2019, describing how their campaign has now brought about Valerie’s Law and changes to guardianship rules for children.

‘The French family had the will and the perseverance to campaign for change because of what they suffered. Let’s be straight about it, they shouldn’t have to do this. The legislative politicians should be doing this themselves,’ he said, adding that political parties should not treat the issue as their own headline. ‘The Oireachtas as a whole needs to do better,’ he added.

In West Cork, he said the region’s key economic drivers remain fishing, farming and tourism.

He argued farmers need to earn fairly and it should become easier to pass farms from one generation to the next.

On fishing, he said the industry has suffered ‘after 30 years of poor policies’.

Coastal and road infrastructure, investment in education and creating housing and community infrastructure were also key areas that needed urgent attention in West Cork, especially in growing places like Clonakilty.

Combatting the drugs trade is also on his agenda. ‘There’s no doubt we are a target for international drug criminals and the smuggling of drugs is an issue that I’m very aware of,’ he said.

He called for more guards in rural areas and an education effort around drugs within communities.