A senior engineer for Mayo County Council reported has stated there needs to be more involvement from community organisations to keep towns clean and litter free. Noel Burke, senior engineer for Mayo County Council, was responding to a question from Cllr Joe Mellet at the Swinford Electoral Area meeting this week about the numbers of people who will be working on town clean ups when the council outdoor staff takes annual builders holidays.
Mr Burke replied that the council would be employing a skeleton staff as always, but the cost of keeping the towns clean was costing a lot of money. He added that nobody is happy the money has to come out of the roads budget every year, when there are roads and projects that people want to see get completed. Mr Burke said it was time for community organisations to become more involved in keeping towns and areas clean on an everyday basis in conjunction with the council.
Fine Gael councillor Eugene Lavin told the meeting: “It would be a bad day that the council reneged on their duty to keep our towns clean, it’s important that the council have someone on the ground working on it full time.”
However director of services Paddy Mahon stated the council was not talking about pulling the service it provides, but getting community groups, like the tidy towns, more involved.
“ The council can only do so much, there needs to be greater work done together with the community and the council, we are working from a limited budget and there is only so much you can do with it, and there are not just towns to think of there are plenty of small villages too.”
