Profile & Campaign
Quentin Gargan was born in Dublin in 1956. After school he studied plastics engineering, then worked in a variety of areas including engineering, telecommunications and confectionery. At the age of 25 he established a healthfood distribution company which is now market leader in Ireland employing over 50 people. More recently he launched a solar water heating business.
Quentin has a successful track record in both business and campaigning. He and his partner Clare Watson, formed Genetic Concern, a campaign group which highlighted the dangers of genetically engineered foods. More recently he worked with a group opposing an overhead powerline near Bantry. There is now broad agreement that this powerline will be constructed underground.
In 1999, he and Clare moved from Dublin to a small farm near Bantry where they have built a straw-bale house which derives most of its energy from a wind turbine and solar water heating panels. See more on their house and courses here
He claims that the Green Party agenda suits West Cork where a short-term building boom has masked a decline in the traditional industries of fishing, tourism and farming. He sees the need to develop tourism based on valuing West Cork’s unique assets - not just its scenic beauty, but its warm hospitality and fine artisan foods that are amongst the best in the world. He would love to see the development of local initiatives similar to the Green Box scheme recently launched in the Sligo-Leitrim area. This would promote quality Irish food abroad while enhancing a niche tourism market at home.
Besides developing the artisan food sector, Quentin believes that with the right supports and training, agriculture can provide more jobs in rural areas, both by producing energy crops and by diversifying to produce more produce for local markets which he believes should be supported.
In relation to health, education and other issues, unless Ireland deals with its over-dependence on dwindling supplies of oil and gas, energy prices will bring about a decline in our economy under which maintaining existing services may prove impossible. Thus, developing renewable energy and reducing carbon emissions was at the core of his election campaign.
In the election he called for the grid to be comprehensively restructured so that it can accommodate input from wind, tidal and wave power in the future, and wanted to promote the construction of community owned wind-farms on suitable sites as well as wave and tidal projects - a new technology in which he believes West Cork could become a centre of excellence.