There was disappointment among the members of Ballina Town Council when town engineer Michael O’Grady revealed that the Department of Transport had cut the grant for the town from €287,000, as was announced in February, to €177,000 due to national budgetary cutbacks.
Mr O’Grady told the members that due to the cutbacks he had to scale back significantly the roadworks programme he had planned for the town. The new roadworks schedule will see the town council carry out works on the Quay Road costing €67,400, St Muredachs Terrace costing €11,000, Cathedral Close works costing €28,000, resurfacing work on Clarke’s Road costing €24,300, and other small projects on Creggs Road, Ridgepool Road, Barrett Street, and Moy Heights. The council out of its own funds will carry out refurbishment works on the Lord Edward Street back lane-way costing €70,000 as part of a five year programme of refurbishment and improvement works on the back lane-ways within the urban area.
With the council’s own funding of lane-way projects, it brought the total outlay on roadworks available to the council to €247,000 for the year. Mr O’Grady broke down the expenditure in the town percentagewise to show that 28 per cent of the funding would go into footpath restoration and construction, 9.6 per cent into the upgrade and provision of public lighting, 22 per cent into road pavement works, 28.2 per cent into lane-way upgrade works, and 12.2 per cent into other areas such as pedestrian crossings and signs.
Fine Gael Councillor Mark Winters told the meeting: “It goes without saying a 38 per cent cut is a slashing of our budget. I for one feel betrayed, we committed the extra rate payers’ money to improvements that are needed, we have been let down by the Government and we could see a deficit in our budget at the end of the year now.” Fianna Fáil Cllr Willie Nolan was complimentary of the town engineer’s plan. “I think the engineer has done well, in relation to the cuts in the budget and has done the best he can in these tough times,” he said.
Independent Cllr Mary Kelly was not in such a complimentary mood and told the council: “I’m disappointed to say the least with this. It was apparent that with a cut of around €100,000 there were always going to be winners and losers, but looking at this plan it looks like Ardnaree and Bunree don’t exist at all. I’m looking at how Quay Road and Creggs Road were given 33 per cent of the budget.”
Fianna Fáil Cllr Johnny O’Malley also raised an issue that he believes needs to be addressed in the scheme. “I’m a little bit amazed, we have heard so much about the Behy Road, it’s got 14 businesses on it and the road is in very bad condition and it’s a very critical piece of infrastructure.” The town engineer recognised the issues raised by the councillors and told them: “You have all raised very valid issues, but I had to try and strike a balance with what we have.” On Cllr Kelly’s issue regarding the lack of funding for the Bunree and Ardnaree areas, O’Grady said: “It’s swings and roundabouts, last year I gave an extra €50,000 to works on Bunree Road that was originally allocated to a project on Primrose Hill, until we ran into some issues there, it’s the way it is.”
