Cllr Colm Arthur has accused Fianna Fáil councillors of ‘nitpicking’ following Westmeath County Council’s budget meeting on Monday.
Cllr Arthur remarked: “We had received a comprehensive presentation of the figures from director of finance Eddy Hynes. Questions were asked for a period of 14 hours over three meetings and all queries and questions were answered in detail. Due to prudent management by county manager Danny Mc Loughlin and his staff, the budget was presented to us for adoption with all services available at last year’s levels.
“All councillors expressed opinions as to where improvements or changes could be made; however due to government cutbacks these improvements were impossible.”
Fine Gael and Labour proposed the budget for adoption; however, following insistence from some Fianna Fáil councillors that savings could be made, Cllr Arthur accused Fianna Fáil councillors of making little of the presentation by the executive and stated that they were “nitpicking”.
