The Ballina Town Council agreed to give Ballina Chamber €20,000 for the promotion of the town at the monthly meeting of the council this week, but the decision did lead to some heated debate in the council chamber. Ballina Chamber had initially made the application a number of months ago, but the decision was held off after some of the members of the council expressed their concerns that they would not be included in the decision of where the money would be spent, and requested the chamber to report back to them as to what exactly the €20,000 would be spent on. Before the debate began, Mayor Mary Kelly told the meeting that she believed that Cllr Mark Winters should excuse himself from the chamber for the item because he is the secretary of the chamber, Cllr Winters objected to this telling the meeting that he was there as a councillor and that his position in the chamber was a voluntary one, and he was not getting paid for his work with the chamber. Town clerk Carmel Murphy agreed that Cllr Winter would not have a conflict of interest as he was a member of a voluntary organisation and not a paid staff member.
Independent Councillor Gerry Ginty supported Cllr Winters saying: “If I thought there was any remote possibility that there would be a monetary gain to Cllr Winters I’d object, but there is none.”
While all the members supported the idea of promoting Ballina in whatever way they could, there were objections from members again as the elected members were not involved in the decision making of where the money would be spent. Cllr Johnny O’Malley told the meeting, “the only difficulty I have is that the chamber and the council executive meeting have to come together with a plan. I feel a little bit distanced from it. It would have been better if we had been more closely involved in it. When it is being decided in future where this money is being spent the councillors should be more closely involved in it.” Mayor Mary Kelly was of a similar thought to Cllr O’Malley, she told the meeting: “What upset me, what still hasn’t changed, is the lack of consultation, they haven’t discussed it with the elected members. We are funding 100 per cent of these initiatives through the chamber.”
Cllr Mark Winters told the meeting that the chamber members had no problem coming into the town council and explaining what they wanted to do and would be happy to do it. In the end the council decided to set up a sub committee of the council to liaise with the chamber on future initiatives, the three members of the council to make up the sub committee of the council were Cllr Gerry Ginty, Cllr Barry McLoughlin, and Cllr Johnny O’Malley.
