Independent Ballina town councillor Mary Kelly raised a number of questions over the allocation of €20,000 worth of funding from the council’s coffers towards Ballina Chamber of Commerce for 2011. Cllr Kelly asked what the council would get for the large allocation of funding towards the Chamber and what influence the council would have on where the money was being spent.
Town clerk Carmel Murphy told the meeting that she and three of the councillors were put on a committee to meet the Chamber and discuss where the funding would be used. Cllr Gerry Ginty, who was one of those appointed to the committee, told the councillors he was unfortunately unable to attend that meeting, but it was attended by Cllr Barry McLoughlin and Cllr Johnny O’Malley.
Ms Murphy told the meeting that the council had made a number of suggestions to the Chamber and a number of changes were made to their plans on their recommendations. “I’ll have to say that there has to be a number of other organisations who can also promote Ballina equally as well for the large amount of money we are giving over to the Chamber,” said Cllr Kelly.
The allocation of the funding was backed by a large number of councillors with Cllr Willie Nolan, Cllr Peter Clarke and Méara Cllr Francis McAndrew all giving their support to the Chamber for the work it is carrying out. Cllr Johnny O’Malley also gave the funding his backing, but told the meeting there had to be some kind of way to measure the success of the Chamber in promoting Ballina. “We are giving a large amount of money per annum, we need to have some sort of measure of the success of the projects being put in place. We have anecdotal evidence so far, but we need a real measure. Maybe there should be money put in place for a big push to bring the Fleadh back to Ballina which has a proven track record for bringing in big numbers of tourists into the town.”
