Search Results for 'Eddie Staunton'

A proposal to have all 400kv power lines undergrounded included in the new Mayo County Council development plan fell at a vote (12-10, with nine councillors absent for the vote ) at this week’s special meeting of the council to approve the new county development plan.

“Are we robbing Peter to pay Paul?” asked Cllr Seamus Weir this week when the Ballina Electoral Area Committee was discussing the Local Improvement Scheme (LIS) part of the roadworks scheme for the area.

Those were the words of Deputy Michelle Mulherin when she addressed the members of the Ballina branch of Young Fine Gael at its recent AGM. The members, whose age range is from 15 to 30 years, were given an address on a number of local and national issues by Deputy Mulherin. In particular, she noted that the economic outlook was promising and that the future prospects for school-leavers and graduates were good. Local Fine Gael councillors John O’Hara, Eddie Staunton and Seamus Weir updated the branch members on a number of local issues.

As part of a wide ranging contribution on the overall financial state of Mayo County Council at its monthly meeting, Cllr Peter Flynn hit out at the procurement polices of the council and those responsible for running it. The Westport based Fine Gael councillor said: “We’ve John Maughan (procurement officer for Mayo County Council), who knows nothing about procurement. All he does is alienate people it seems. I spoke to one person who sourced all the supplies for their office from the one supplier in town (Castlebar). Now they have eight suppliers, eight purchase orders, eight different things to sign off on. It probably costs three times as much in the end.”

The reporting of potholes, illegal dumping, leaks and other such issues to both town and county councils was once upon a time in the main part the work of elected councillors. But not so any more. The elected members of Mayo County Council were given a demonstration on the new www.fixyourstreet.ie website and some were not impressed with what they saw.

The members of the Ballina Electoral Area Committee will meet next week to work out the road works plan for the area with senior engineers from Mayo County Council. At Wednesday’s monthly meeting of the committee the idea was mooted that the individual councillors would not take up the potential €7,000 that can be allocated to Local Improvement Scheme (LIS) works on private roads and they would put the money back into public road works budget.

The issue of housing Traveller families came up at the November meeting of the housing SPC of Mayo County Council this week. Both Cllr Gerry Ginty and Cllr Eddie Staunton brought up the issue at Thursday morning’s meeting. Director of services for Mayo County Council, Martin Keating, told the members: “We will be having a meeting of the local Traveller consultative committee in December to review the progress we have made this year and will report to this SPC in the new year.”

Despite each member of the Ballina Electoral Area Committee to get behind and work towards getting a satisfactory solution to the current impasse on the N26 from Ballina, the issue once again became a game of political tick for tack at the Ballina Electoral Area Committee.

The ongoing saga of potholes on roads around Ballina was raised once again at the Ballina Electoral Area meeting this week when Fine Gael councillor , Jarlath Munnelly said, “I may sound like a broken record in respect of this but the problem of the potholes has to be fixed. If we don’t get it sorted in the next short while, it will be 10 times worse by the time we can do it again if we get a winter like last year”.

The never ending issue of pot holes in the roads around the county raised its head again this week at the September meeting of Ballina Electoral Area. Fine Gael councillor Eddie Staunton told the meeting this week, “potholes are my major problem, it’s getting worse and worse by the week. Is there anything that we can do, because we get some filled and then they are back again. It’s getting close to winter now and if we have one like the last two we’ll have serious problems.” Cllr Staunton’s issue was backed by his party colleague Cllr Jarlath Munnelly who said, “we need to have this sorted by now, because come November or December we won’t be able to get it sorted if the cold weather comes like we’ve seen before.”