“Seven doesn’t go into six” is Independent Councillor Harry Walsh’s clear observation on next year’s local elections. With the redrawing of the boundaries for next year’s local elections, the Ballinrobe area came out of it looking like they could be the big looser in the terms of representation. With the purging of the Ballinrobe electoral area from the map and it being subsumed into the newly redrawn Claremorris area, it brings an end to ten years as single electoral entity. “We do feel hard done by and the area as a whole should feel hard done by because we have lost a lot of our natural hinterland in this redrawing and we are now being consumed into a very large geographical area in the county. My main concern is of course for the Ballinrobe area as a whole, but my home area of around Shrule and Kilmaine went for seven or eight years without a councillor before and it’s important that an area like that has representation.”
Every councillor spends every cent
The amount of work that a councillor can get done on the ground, while it may not be seen by a lot of people, is quite considerable according to Walsh. “When you add it up over the five-year term of a councillor it’s about €800,000 that a councillor can get spent on projects here and there.” Walsh is also keen to get across the point that even as an independent, every single councillor gets the same allocation no matter what. “From the Cathaoirleach down to the lowliest independent councillor it doesn’t matter because we all get the same allocation, be it notice of motion money or local improvement scheme money, all 31 of us get the same. While the party in control of the council can change the direction that the council is going to take on things like the budget and polices we all get the same amount of money.
“Even with the budget there’s not much room to move for the majority party because the funding comes from central government and you only have so much room to wiggle on it. The public have a perception that some are good councillors and some are bad councillors, but every cent is spent by the 31 councillors on projects in their area.”
The Ballinrobe electoral area committee, made up of Walsh along with Fine Gael’s Patsy O’Brien and Fianna Fáil’s Damien Ryan, have worked quite well together over the past number of years when it comes to the spending of the social and economic funding that is available to them, something which Walsh is quite proud of. “We have done very well with that money as far as I’m concerned, we earmarked a number of projects throughout the area and each year we allocated the money for all three councillors to a variety of projects spread across the area. And if there is a seat lost in the Ballinrobe area the next time out then there is one large chunk of money that won’t be available next time around for projects in the area.”
Walsh for the Dáil?
While the election may be seven months away, Walsh hasn’t committed to running again, but there are a number of strong persuasive factors that are pushing him towards defending his seat. “I won’t make a 100 per cent decision until after Christmas, but there are a number of considerations that I am thinking about before deciding on it. If I don’t run I would be afraid that Ballinrobe will lose a seat due to the change in the boundaries, and there is also my home area of Kilmaine and Shrule so to say, because I don’t want to see that area without representation either.”
Under-representation in south Mayo at a national level is something that Walsh thinks needs to be addressed for the area to really flourish and grow. “It’s something that bugs me that this area is with out a TD for such a long time and I think that if changes are to happen we need a national representation. There were people in Ballinrobe town last time who weren’t happy that none of the people who got elected to the county council were per say from inside the town, but were all only a couple of miles away from it. Yet the votes for the national elections from here are all going to Castlebar, Westport and Ballina based people and that’s something that really has to be looked at.” Will Harry be throwing his hat in the ring next time out for a Dáil seat? Well, that’s something that he hasn’t quite nailed his colours to the mast on just yet. “I will consider running for any other office, if it was for the benefit of south Mayo and of course if there was a reasonable chance of winning.”
