'Alarming' number of staff vacancies in County Council

Mayo County Council has an 'alarming' number of staff vacancies, according to a local councillor.

Cllr Peter Flynn made the comments during Mayo County Council's annual budget meeting.

He said he believes the local authority is 'floundering'.

"The most alarming thing that jumped out at me was the vacancies within Mayo County Council. If you look at the full-time vacancies in 2021, there were 101, in 2022 133 and already for 2023 we are up at 142. That’s really an alarming situation to have that number of people leaving an organisation," said the Fine Gael councillor.

He said a recent survey of council staff indicated the need for 84 positions across the organisation. He said Mayo County Council is only going to fill six of those positions.  

"It's a hammer blow for Departments," stated Cllr Flynn.

Chief Executive of Mayo County Council, Kevin Kelly disputed the assertion that there is a staffing crisis.

"Maybe I got it wrong but I assumed if I came in here with a budget for 80 additional staff being recruited to the organisation and we didn’t have front-facing increases for services, then the members would be telling me something fairly different. What we are experiencing in terms of staff turnover is no different to any local authority or the public service generally at the moment," said Mr Kelly.

Meanwhile, Cllr Flynn contended that a €400,000 drop in Mayo County Council's projected car parking income over a two-and-a-half-year period can be partly attributed to the high number of refugees in the county.

"If anyone wanted evidence of what is happening in this county and what the impact of the volume of refugees coming into this county is, the car parking income tells a perfect tale. This is not Peter Flynn scaremongering, this is real facts and figures where the numbers are dropping significantly because footfall is dropping in our towns. This is because we have taken so many hotel beds out of circulation."