Killian Mangan
Tramore-Waterford City West
Killian Mangan is the Party Candidate for Local Councillor in the ‘Tramore-Waterford City West’ ward for Waterford City & County Council. Killian is from Butlerstown and went to primary school there before going to secondary in Tramore. He moved over to Glasgow to study game design and then during the pandemic spent a year living back in Waterford, before moving to Barcelona and working in a call centre there in order to be closer to his boyfriend at the time. He spent 2 years working in a games company in Edinburgh before leaving his job and moving back home in order to focus on politics and political activism in order to try to help make a better Waterford and Ireland.
After founding a remote-work game development studio called Quarant Inc 4 years ago, Killian structured that company as a co-operative – a democratic business - and was then elected as the Team/Creative Lead, working full-time to release a video game on PC, before switching to part-time development in order to prioritise his day job working as a Game and Environment Designer in a large games company in Edinburgh. He continues to lead a development team of 5 people in his free time and takes charge of production and management of project development and the company.
In Scotland, Killian dedicated a lot of free time to both electoral politics and political activism, learning a massive amount through his work fighting for tenants’ rights in Scotland’s housing crisis as an active member of Scottish tenants’ union Living Rent. In recent years, he also helped to launch this party, and has been engaged in managing social media and comms, creating Rules & Procedures, and writing Programmatic Docs.
Killian also helped to create the Waterford Branch of CATU (Community Action Tenants’ Union) and serves as the Comms Officer, and is active in the pro-diversity group Waterford For All. He also participated in the ACTC (Anti-Conversion Therapy Coalition), a cross-party, all-island group lobbying the governments on this island to ban conversion therapy. He also founded a remote-work game development company structured as a democratic worker co-operative called Quarant Inc. and was elected as Team/Creative Lead, working on and releasing multiple games in recent years.
With a history of IBS and anxiety, Killian is a keen advocate for accessibility in society, and co-ordinated the Party’s response to the Government green paper on disability allowance reform. He has a significant interest in designing better and accessible public spaces, providing more public toilets, and tenants’ rights.
Killian aspires to help popularise a democratic market economy; public, non-profit, and co-operative companies operating in a democratic market with a fair balance between competition and cooperation based on the concept that “a rising tide raises all boats”. This economic model has already achieved huge success in sustainable economic growth without increasing inequality in the Basque Country in Spain, as well as creating the only housing system in the West which has avoided a housing crisis in Vienna, Austria. He is also a keen believer in universal services and progressive taxation, as well as democratic reform and localism.
Killian’s Priorities if elected:
Take Local Control: Bring all of Waterford City South Quay into local ownership and convert it into a public space for locals to enjoy, instead of a for-profit carpark extracting money from locals. This must be done in coordination with an expansion of public transport and active travel so that those who prefer to drive can continue to access parking.
Give Communities A Voice: Implement a Participative Planning system so that communities have a direct say on how and where public money is spent. This would be called “Déise Decides” and would use the open-source online Decidim platform to allow any residents to propose plans (for example a playground, public housing or a park) and allow other residents to vote on how to spend that money. It already exists in Barcelona and has achieved great success in giving communities direct control of public money.
Reform Local Government: Pressure the Central Government to give all councils in Ireland the option to change their structure in a local plebiscite. Currently, all councils must be led by an unelected ‘CEO of the Council’ (on €160k salary in Waterford’s case). Councils must be given the decision to freely, with local constituents’ consent, change to either; a committee system which uses a series of cross-party committees based on different areas of competence; a cabinet system which forms a local government from majority of councillors and has local ministers for each area of competence; or a directly elected mayor which makes executive decisions, similar to a president. Most European countries have one of these 3 systems for local government, and Ireland is effectively unique in Europe in having an unelected local head of government, which is a huge reason for Ireland being one of the only countries in Europe to trust local government less than national government. Killian’s preference is for a cabinet system which matches the current system in National Government, in order to maximise how transferrable our politician’s skillset is between local and national level. He aims to be chosen as a delegate for AILG (Association for Irish Local Government) and through that organisation, work collectively with other councillors to push the Central Government to introduce legislation allowing local councils to choose their structure.
Provide Affordable Housing: Support housing co-ops and build public housing on public land. Co-op support includes working with credit unions to provide loans to create housing co-op developments, in addition to providing long term leases to housing co-ops in order for them to build housing on public land, which is democratically and cooperatively managed by all residents. All housing grants and funding provided by the Central Government must be used in order to CPO as many derelict buildings as possible to then turn them into liveable housing.
Build Community Wealth: Direct Waterford’s Local Authority to prioritise working with local, social, and public enterprise to keep money in the hands of local workers and carers. Known as the Preston Model, this is a way of building up the local economy from the ground up in a sustainable way using the leverage that a council has in terms of employment and procurement, instead of only relying on outside investment and multinational support.
Improve Urban Spaces: Implement urban design best-practice from cities and towns around Europe, with a focus on accessibility, sustainability, and returning public space to the community. Concepts such as the 15-minute city have drastically improved the lives of people living in Paris and Barcelona and have helped to break down the divide between urban and rural living, in order to ensure that cities are connected to nature and green space. It also helps to slow down the rhythm or metronome of a city, and give back much needed time to workers and carers, allowing them to focus on the things that matter instead of spending so much time travelling to and from where they need to get to.