Interview with Dylan Haskins

DUBLIN— There is a saying “you can't put an old head on young shoulders,” after speaking with Independent candidate for Dublin South East, Mr Dylan Haskins this week, I think he may prove that proverb wrong.

Epoch Times: Mr Haskins, can you explain why you decided to get involved in politics for this election?
Dylan Haskins: Well, I have always been very political, but I always found that it was more effective to do things on the ground than to join a party. I have always liked to speak my mind, and the idea of towing a line on something because a whip told me is something that would never rest easy with me.
From the age of 15 I started organising festivals, gigs and tours for young bands. We created our own facilities because the government did not provide any facilities for us. In 2009, I set up an arts and social centre in Temple Bar called Exchange Dublin, where the idea was to offer a free space for people to present work in the city who would not be able to access space otherwise, because space is a really hard thing to get in Dublin.
Around the same time, I joined the board of directors of the Project Arts Centre, which is probably the leading contemporary arts centre in Dublin.
My background … I come very much from an arts background, but it's political in the sense that I have always liked to explore different ways of working and ways around, you know, when you are presented with problems and obstacles. Be that a politician not writing back to you, and trying to figure a way to create the facilities without funding. To sitting on the board of directors of an arts centre, and seeing them through the several funding cuts that every organisation has seen.
So in the past year, I suppose, it's been extremely frustrating watching what has happened to the country, and seeing my generation emigrating, and that the prospect for when you finish college is that you have to leave the country. I look at the Dail and I see 70 per cent of the Dail is over the age of 50, and you know 80 per cent of the Dail is male as well: I think the Dail should really look more like Ireland in terms of gender, and in terms of age.
The only way that will happen is if more young people and more women stand, so I decided to put myself forward as a candidate, and I also think that coming from the background of the creative sector, I think we need a lot of creativity in government at the moment.

 

ET: Do you think your youth will affect your chances of getting elected?
DH: We have grown used to politicians being much older, but in reality, in the first Dail, the average age was thirty, and they were working without any precedent. But also I think having worked since 2004 in the constituency starting projects, I might be young, but I do have experience, and it's real experience on the ground, but also, you look at that and you look at the people who have been running the country, who have lots of experience, and look what's happened. Experience is only worth something if you actually learn something from your mistakes. I have watched what has happened to my country, and I have been critical of the mistakes as they were happening. I feel that I am aware of where the others fell down in the past and I am not willing to make those mistakes, and I am not disposed to those mistakes.
I listen to a broad range of views and take my advice from there. I don't just listen to a particular group of people which, it seems, have called the shots in the politicians ears in recent times. I'm about listening to a much wider range of views on particular issues before I make up my mind.

 

 

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