The chief executive of Mayo County Council, Peter Hynes, has said he will give the members of the council a full report on the progress of the project once the tenders for the project have been opened. He told the monthly meeting of the authority on Monday he expected to be able to give that report in either December of January.
The future of the proposed center was raised by Fianna Fáil councillor Michael Holmes who asked for an update on it alongside Independent Ballina based councillor Gerry Ginty. Mr Hynes responded to their queries saying: "On the Mary Robinson Centre, it is one of the most important projects introduced by this council in the last 10 years, particularly for Ballina. Mary Robinson is one of the few global leaders produced by this county." He went on to say that, "In terms of the project, it is at advanced design stage, it is our intention it will proceed, we are committed to €1.5 million. That is the indicative cost that we gave when we presented it to the council here before, it will not exceed that commitment and none of the expenditure will exceed the expenditure that was indicated in that report.
"What I intend to do is that when we get the tenders in, part of the problem is that costs have increased because building costs have increased over the last two years and other factors have complicated the project and I don't want to get into the detail of that, but when the tenders are opened and we have a clear assessment of where the project can and should go, I will give a full report to this council, it may be December, it may be January, but it will be done."
