Search Results for 'Cllr Eddie Staunton'

The Education Working Group of Mayo County Development Board and Mayo North East Leader Partnership Co is organising the Education, Training, and Supports for Unemployed Expo in The Newman Institute, Ballina, on October 18 2012, which will run from 10am to 4pm.

The number of traveller families living on the roadside in the county has fallen by 25 in the first two years of Mayo County Council’s Traveller Accommodation Plan, which will run until 2014. The plan was due for review after two years and the elected members of the council were given a report last week on the progress of the plan by Martin Keating, Senior Executive Officer for Mayo County Council.

The members of the Ballina Electoral Area this week called on the council to look again at a planning application for four wind turbines that is scheduled to be turned down for permission by the council.

A directive by former minister for the environment and local government John Gormley after he varied the Mayo County Development plan was the cause of major disbelief for members of the Ballina Electoral Area this week. The members were being informed of a number of planning permission refusals by senior planner for Mayo County Council, John McMyler, who told them about the refusal of an application for planning permission for a house at Broadlands, Knockafarson, Ballina. Mr McMyler told the meeting the applicant had applied to demolish an existing dwelling house and construct a new house on the same site.

Following 12 hours of debate on Monday last Mayo County Council adopted a budget worth €131,952,449 for the year. The big talking point of the debate among the 31 councillors was the proposal by the council executive to increase water charges to non domestic customers by 10 per cent, an increase that was criticised by members from both sides of the house. Following much negotiation, the adopted budget will see an increase of 6.25 per cent in water charges for year, which was proposed by Fine Gael party whip Councillor Joe Mellet and seconded by party colleague Cllr Eddie Staunton.

“All lands will be frozen until a route is chosen and accepted by the council,” was the stark reality that senior engineer for Mayo County Council, Noel Burke, told members of the Ballina Electoral Area this week. The members of the committee had been debating the issue of the new Crossmolina bypass which has caused plenty of debate in the area over the past number of months. When the route chosen by the council executive for the proposed new bypass was rejected by the council, all potential routes and lands around them were frozen for development.

A number of Ballina based councillors expressed their anger that the stalled N26 project has been left in limbo. Fine Gael councillor Seamus Weir told a meeting of the Ballina Electoral Area committee of his frustration at the silence on the issue since it was refused planning permission by An Bord Pleanála. He asked the council executive if there was an update on the project. “We had a meeting two months ago and we spoke at length about it,” he said. “I have heard nothing since about it, we adopted this plan in 2002 and since then we have had landowners having their lands frozen and now they still don’t know what is going to happen. It’s just not fair on them. Is this project dead in the water or what? The reality of this is that we do need this road, the people need the road. I’d favour downgrading the road from a dual carriageway if it made it easier for it to go ahead.”

The monthly meeting of Mayo County Council was adjourned this week, as a mark of respect to two of the elected members of the council whose parents died recently. Glowing tributes were paid to both Mr Michael Mulherin, father of Ballina-based Councillor Michelle Mulherin and Angela O’Brien, mother of south-Mayo Cllr Patsy O’Brien.