A land swap and sale deal between Mayo County Council and Inishoo Management Limited that was passed at the April meeting of the local authority, has been objected to by a Westport-based councillor.
Independent councillor John O'Malley, who did not support the deal, left the online meeting at which the deal was discussed this week, in protest, before a decision was made to ratify it.
The deal sees Mayo County Council leasing a four acre site on the Golf Course Road in Westport to Westport GAA for 99-years, with the club also leasing four acres of land from Inishoo Management, that is beside the land being leased to them by Mayo County Council.
Along with these leases, a land swap and sale deal has been agreed between Mayo County Council and Inishoo Management, where Inishoo Management will get 6.7 acres of land close to the Chesapeake printing plant on the Golf Course Road from the council, with the council, in return, getting 4.1 acres of land beside lands it already owns close by on the Golf Course Road, as well as €360,225.
This deal was already the subject of a heated debate at the West Mayo Municipal District last month, before it was passed to go before the full council for final approval.
At that meeting this week, Independent Cllr John O'Malley raised his objections to the deal once again, saying that he felt he had been left in the dark about the deal and that he believed it was not a good deal for the council - before he left the meeting in protest, prior to a decision being made to finalise the agreements.
Cllr Peter Flynn, who had raised a number of questions surrounding the deal at the previous municipal district, said that he didn't want to debate the issue again as it had been done already - but asked the interim chief executive, Peter Duggan, did the deal comply with government guidelines and did he think it was a good deal.
Mr Duggan replied that he did think it was a good deal and would not have been made it if did not comply with the guidelines.
The deal was proposed and seconded by Westport based councillors Brendan Mulroy and Christy Hyland and passed without any objections from other councillors.
