Search Results for 'Martin Keating'

In as emphatic terms as they possibly could say it last Monday a number of councillors from the West Mayo Municipal District said they would not stand for the area not having a stand alone director of services to look after the area when an upcoming reshuffle and appointment of two new full time directors of services is completed by Mayo County Council.

The elected members of the West Mayo Municipal District gave their approval for Mayo County Council to proceed with its plans for the development of a new car park along with drainage and ancillary works for Bartraw Beach, Thornhill, Murrisk, at their March meeting this week. The item was proposed by Cllr Christy Hyland and seconded by Cllr Brendan Mulroy.

The condition of the pathway up Croagh Patrick, and ensuring that it is made safe, was raised again this week at the West Mayo Municipal District’s monthly meeting.

The announcement on Wednesday of a €30,265,764 allocation for local authority housing needs in Mayo will see the new 20 unit project in Tubber Hill get started. Minister of State Michael Ring said after the announcement of the funding: “In Westport, 20 new housing units will be built and this will go a long way towards reducing the housing list in Westport. In Mayo, €30,265,764 has been allocated to the county council for local authority housing. It is estimated that this funding will meet 38 per cent of the housing need in Mayo. This is not even including the Housing Assistance Payment which will help to further reduce demand on our housing waiting list.”

There are more than 500 applications on file in the West Mayo District for social housing, it was revealed this week. The March meeting of the local authority was told there were 503 applications on file in the region by director of services for the district, Martin Keating. He further broke down the figures outlining that in the Westport town area there were 198 applications, in the Westport rural area there were 97, in Belmullet there were 52, in the Ballycroy and Mulranny area there were 20 applications, and in the Achill area there were 33 applications.

There has been some progress for tenants of local authority homes affected by pyrite, it was revealed this week, but there was not good news for private home owners in the county also affected by the problem. At this week’s meeting of the West Mayo Municipal District, Martin Keating, the director of services for the district, told the elected members: “We’ve received communication from the Department that confirms that they are not covered by the pyrite remediation scheme [which was in place in the east of the country], but they are willing to work with Mayo County Council to resolve the issue. They have asked us to commission a number of further tests and studies on the units and to submit them to them as soon as possible. Arrangements are being made to have that done at the minute, we will keep you appraised on that. We are very glad to see there is movement on it from the Department, or at least a willingness to work with the council on resolving the social housing units.”

Technical staff from Mayo County Council are currently carrying out a stock survey of the 640 local authority housing units in the West Mayo Municipal District, a meeting of the district was told this week.

With the one year anniversary of the serious flooding that affected parts of the county, councillors from the West Mayo Municipal District have expressed their disappointment that works still have not been carried out on one of the worst affected areas in Carrowholly. Independent councillor Christy Hyland said at this week’s meeting of the municipal district: “I’ll be very honest, the people feel abandoned by this council and I can’t emphasise it strongly enough. They feel totally abandoned. They were looking out last Friday morning at 7.30am at a 5m tide, I just wonder if there was a big wind what would have happened.”

The problem of pyrite in local authority homes is something Mayo County Council is trying to address and is pushing with the relevant Government departments it was said this week.

Mayo County Council have their preparations well under way in case their is a repeat of the storm conditions that battered the county last Christmas.