Fáilte romhat.
Welcome to my personal councillor website. I am Councillor Seamus Shields, the SDLP elected member for the electoral ward of Mid-Tyrone - part of Omagh District Council. I was first elected in 1989 and subsequently re-elected at each local election since.
I spent most of my working life as a primary school teacher, latterly as Principal of St Metthew's Primary School, Garvaghey, Ballygawley. When I took early retirement from teaching I studied law through the Open University, graduating with first class honours in 2005. I then progressed to the Institute of Professional Legal Studies at Queen's University Belfast where I qualified as a solicitor-advocate in 2007.
My main interests as a local councillor are in issues that affect the quality of life in dispersed rural communities - remoteness from services; poor roads and transport infrastructure; deprivation and social exclusion of single people, the elderly and those with disabilities. I also take a keen interest in educational matters, planning regulations and health and well-being policies as these pertain to rural areas. On the wider front, I am actively involved in cross-border co-operation and development and I sit on the recently established EU Peace III Partnership Cluster which encompasses Omagh, Strabane and Derry City council areas.
I will be using this site to keep you informed about my work, and to provide you with information about developments at Omagh District Council.
This website has been provided to help me in my work as a councillor – to help me communicate with all residents of Mid-Tyrone, regardless of their political persuasion. It has been provided to help improve the quality of communication between councillors and the people that they represent. As this website has been established with funding from the e-Government Fund programme, it is not appropriate for me to use it for the purposes of political campaigning.
However, there is a ‘My Politics’ link in the toolbar on the left-hand side of this website, and I may use that to link to political sites that I think are of interest.
I hope that you will feel free to use the ‘Contact Me’ button in the toolbar on the left of this site to let me know your views on any important upcoming business that the council is involved in. I’d also be interested to hear how you’d like me to use this website – and other internet tools to improve the way that important local issues are communicated to you.
With best wishes
Councillor Seamus Shields MA, LLB (Hons)
