Sitting Ballina Town Councillor, Peter Clarke has thrown his hat in the ring for this month’s local elections declaring in the Ballina Municipal District. Setting out his reasons for going forward for election he said, “I am a native of O’Rahilly Street, Ballina and have been involved in politics for the last 24 years. For the last 10 years I have been elected to Ballina Town Council working for the betterment of Ballina and north Mayo. If elected to Mayo County Council my aims are to reduce the commercial rates of businesses and to make sure the ratepayers’ money stays in Mayo.”
He continued: “We should further expand and improve the following tourist attractions, The Davitt Museum, Foxford Woollen Mills, Jackie Clarke Collection, the Ceide Fields.” He also pointed out that there needs to be more done to promote the River Moy as an attraction as it is the salmon capital of Ireland.
Clarke also said that he was throwing his support behind the anti-pylon movement in the north Mayo area. He said: “I feel very strongly against pylons as they will ravage our beautiful landscape and hurt our tourism and result in job losses. They will also pose a very serious health risk and we need a strong voice in Mayo County Council to oppose them.”
Clarke also hit out at the way central Government has not given the money collected from the household tax back to local authorities. “In 2012 the Irish Government introduced the household charge as an interim measure and a full Local Property Tax was introduced in 2013 by the Revenue Commissioners. Eighty per cent of taxes raised were meant to be returned to the local authority area from which they came, to fund local services. This has not happened and almost €500 million has been given to Irish Water to fund the initial set up costs, which included the controversial payments to consultants. The Irish Government has done the complete opposite of what they promised the taxpayer and they have left county councils in a worse off position by refusing to honour their agreement that most of the property tax would be returned.”
