Ballina’s hub status, once viewed as a positive label for the town, is now working to the detriment of small local businesses and organisations with the loss of a potential €2 million funding for the town.
It seems the hub status means Ballina will be exempt from the latest round of Leader structural funding, leading to the town Mayor questioning what advantage this status has actually bestowed on the town which has the highest unemployment rate in the country.
Castlebar, which comes under the South West Mayo Development Company, is in a similar predicament, but due to the tight-knit nature of Castlebar’s urban boundary the area in question is much smaller than that affected in Ballina.
Councillor Michelle Mulherin will be tabling a motion at next Wednesday’s Ballina electoral area committee meeting requesting the Minister for Environment, Heritage and Local Government in conjunction with the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs to obtain a derogation from the European Union whereby Ballina and other towns in the BMW region would not be disadvantaged and precluded from accessing structural funds under the new Leader programme by virtue of being designated 'hub towns' under the National Development Plan.
The news that Ballina town is to be excluded from the latest round of funding, which amounts to €10.7 million for the North East Leader company out of a national total of €425 million, is a devastating blow to Ballina Street Festival, arts centre, Granuaile Sub Aqua Club, small businesses, community groups, youth clubs, Chamber of Commerce, residents’ associations, and many more organisations which benefited in the past from Leader funding.
Under the last round of funding, which was allocated in 2007, €847,000 was awarded to 70 different projects in Ballina town but now an agreement between the Government and the EU will see hub towns being excluded from the latest round of funding. It is a devastating blow for the Leader company which had received indications from the Department last December that projects based in the town with overreaching benefits may be considered for funding. However, this will not be the case.
Final nail in coffin
In 2007 in Castlebar approximately eight different groups or individuals shared €200,000 worth of funding.
But it will be areas such as social services which will be worst affected, a member of the South West Mayo Development Company explained to the Mayo Advertiser. These types of services, which are based in a town but which serve rural areas, will be hardest hit.
Mayor Mulherin highlighted her concerns following a public meeting hosted by the North East Leader Development Company in Hiney’s of Crossmolina last Thursday night, saying it is a “final nail in the coffin” for the north Mayo town which already has the “worst unemployment figures in the country”.
Cllr Mulherin said this round of funding has increased threefold but with a potential estimated loss to Ballina town of €2 million.
“This is nothing short of a scandal. Ballina meets all the criteria for receiving structural funds, except for our hub status,” explained Cllr Mulherin who laid the blame firmly at Minister Eamon Ó Cuiv’s door, whom she accused of “offering up hub and gateway towns as areas not to receive funding.” She said the move was engineered for political reasons.
The harsh reality of the economic downturn means that start-up businesses need as many aids as possible now and Leader funding was one such avenue of income. “The idea of structural funds is to support rural communities like Ballina and Castlebar where farming is on the decline. This announcement is particularly devastating to Ballina. All sorts of micro enterprises developed from Leader funding in the past, and now is not the time to cease delivering that funding. It is incumbent on our local TD Dara Calleary that this decision is reversed. We cannot be the losers, sacrificed to Europe. Money has to be channelled into Ballina. It is Dara Calleary’s responsibility to put that right,” fumed Cllr Mulherin.
The South West Mayo Development Company has been granted €12.1 million to be spent on projects outside the town boundary.
