A suggestion that the council introduce a text messaging service to keep the public up to date with council issues was shot down this week as being too costly and difficult to organise.
Cllr Aengus O’Rourke called for the service to be introduced to provide information to the public on housing and issues of importance to the town.
“The efficient texts we received during the recent cold snap were very informative; we should take the opportunity to broaden this to the general public. It is very simple to collate the numbers of those who opt in to the service. The technology is there, it is inexpensive, and we could give people the option to opt out,” he suggested, with the backing of Cllr Mark Cooney and mayor Sheila Buckley Byrne.
The mayor went so far as to suggest that such a service could dramatically alter the way the council does business - “We’d have half the motions [at council meetings]...maybe this is the direction we should be going with less motions and less councillors,” she suggested.
However the council believed such a service would be “demanding in terms of maintenance and the finance cost of texting” and would be “of limited value as it would be almost impossible for the council to direct messages to relevant parties only”.
Director of services Barry Kehoe added there would be insufficient staff resources to develop the idea.
“The problem is people could get information on services of no relevance to them. We would end up sending messages to everyone and I’m informed it’s not cheap - between 6 and 7 cents per text. I feel the information is available to the public on our website and in the media,” he added. However he agreed to ask the council’s IT section to investigate the possibility.
