NO stranger to the coalface of community life and its issues, newly co-opted Sinn Féin Councillor Áine McCabe has described as a “privilege” the opportunity to serve within the Andersonstown area.
 
Co-opted to replace party colleague Emma Groves in November, Áine told the Andersonstown News that she is “looking forward to working with a great Sinn Féin council team, as well as with local MP Paul Maskey and local MLA Alex Maskey”.
 
“I want to thank Emma for the last ten years of service to this community and to say that Emma is still very much an activist and has very kindly offered her support to me,” she said.
“It is an honour and a privilege to take on this role. As much as it may sound like a cliché, I am a life-long republican; I grew up in Clonard and I’m from a republican family. My father Micky Hughes was an ex-internee and my mother Ethna was a former prisoner in Armagh jail.”
 
The former Special Advisor to the late deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness, Áine said she has already engaged with constituents on several issues namely anti-social behaviour and break-ins.
 

“I want to be able to concentrate as well on supporting our local schools, our local young people, helping them fulfill their potential and to support the Irish language and I have already met with a number of language activists in the area.”
 
She continued: “As a female councillor I want to champion issues that are not solely women’s issues but are predominantly so. Recent statistics show that domestic abuse is on the rise, especially throughout the Coronavirus pandemic and period poverty is another issue I would want to address. I have been in discussions with GPs and local pharmacies who have expressed their support in these endeavours. I’m very much a person who wants to get out and engage with constituents, it must be done safely in these times alongside working with Belfast City Council to ensure resources for the community.”
 
Áine praised the work of the staff at Tullymore Community Centre.
 
“Sinn Féin proposed a motion in Council that would ensure local families and those in need would get a Christmas hamper and Tullymore are currently coordinating this. It’s their staff who have gone to our local businesses and it’s them who are providing their produce for the hampers. These businesses are at the heart of the community and they have stood by and continue to stand by us. I would ask the community, as we are only days away from Christmas, to support them and to buy local. I am really looking forward to representing the constituents and their concerns at council level and as 2021 gets under way.”