Councillors in the Ballina Municipal District have agreed to allocate money left over from their 2017 general municipal allocation to the town’s O’Rahilly Street project.
Despite a number of councillors offering alternate suggestions, the council agreed to director of services Tom Gilligan’s recommendation that any outstanding money in the GMA at the end of 2017 be allocated to fund the completion of the O’Rahilly Street project.
Fine Gael councillor John O’Hara had hoped to see the money used to stop gutter pipes in the town flowing on to footpaths; “Some of that money needs to go towards extending gutter pipes to go beneath the bricks of the footpath. This will stop overflow water on to footpaths and stop them getting slippy,” said Cllr O’Hara.
However, he was informed that the money cannot be allocated towards that as a costing plan and research would have to go into the project.
Cathaoirleach and Fianna Fail councillor Annie May Reape called for any left over money in the 2018 GMA to be allocated to decorating the town for Christmas, saying: “I want Christmas light projects finished next year. It’s embarrassing at the moment in the town to see some parts only half decorated. Ballina is the centre of the municipal district and we need to attract people here and get them to spend their money here at this time of year.”
Knockmore based Independent councillor Seamus Weir said: “We agreed last year that any extra or left over funding would go to finish off O’Rahilly Street as their funding was insufficient. There are other things I would like to see the money allocated for but we made that decision last year.”
Councillors agreed to allocate €15,000 towards the project, meaning the 2018 allocation of €40,000 would now be down to €25,000.
