Local Notes: Ballyhaunis playground works to commence in January
Pupils of Scoil Iosa in Ballyhaunis photographed with over 150 shoeboxes collected for Ballyhaunis Parish Pastoral Council annual Team Hope Christmas Shoebox Appeal. The campaign collected just over 150 boxes plus over €200 in donations in addition to the €5 in each box.
Works are expected to commence in January on the refurbishment of the Ballyhaunis community playground, according to Padraic Flanagan, Director of Services for the Claremorris municipal district at Mayo County Council.
“Our parks office are just waiting for the appointed contractor to become available,” said Mr Flanagan.
The refurbishment will be paid for with a €75,000 grant from the Government’s €50 million Community Recognition Fund designed to reward communities for taking in Ukrainian refugees. Built by Mayo County Council in 2004, the playground looks set to be enlarged and resurfaced under the refurbishment.
With two new services added to Ballyhaunis train station this year, passenger numbers at the facility could be set to rise. But use of the train is still in recovery mode after the Covid-19 pandemic, data from an Irish Rail survey shows.
According to the National Rail Census Report 2022 (conducted on November 16 last year), the results of which were published recently, 57 people boarded in Ballyhaunis on the day of the census – higher than the number (42) in the 2021 survey but well below the 122 passengers boarding at the station on the day of the survey in 2019 and in 2018 (69 passengers) and 2017 (106 passengers).
The 2023 survey, conducted last month, has yet to be published but according to a CIE spokesperson: “I don’t think the numbers will change dramatically this year.”
This is despite the addition of a new Westport bound morning service. The new 7.35pm service from Dublin Heuston will add further choice to passengers travelling from Dublin to Ballyhaunis.
Irish Rail is tasked by the National Transport Authority to undertake a nationwide census once a year. The census figures have to be seen in the context of Government efforts to get more people onto trains in order to reduce carbon emissions from the transport sector which remain among the highest in Europe on a per capita basis.
The period 2014-18 saw a 43% growth in passenger rail numbers on Irish Rail’s services. Numbers dropped by 45% in 2021 compared to 2019 while 2022 saw a 62% recovery on the 2021 figure across all lines.
A service every two hours on the Dublin-Westport line is one of the recommendations in the Draft All Island Strategic Rail Review (AISRR). Significant work will be required to track networks in order to increase scheduling.
The remote working hub operated by Enterprise Kiltullagh in Ballinlough has drawn a major forestry company as an anchor tenant and has become a centre of community training activity, according to administrator Michelle Ganley-Brennan.
“We would have remote workers on a regular basis and at the start of this year we rented out our front meeting room to EuroForest Ireland who use it as their west of Ireland base,” said Michelle.
The hub is used weekly by the local Education Training Board to provide language classes to the Ukrainian residents in our community. A dementia cafe was a one-off event earlier this year “but we are hoping that they will host again with us next year,” she added.
“The hub has also hosted IT classes for the Men's Shed and Active Retirement groups. The HSE and Roscommon County Childcare also rent out space when they require it. Most recently, we hosted Atlantic Technology University mentors and Transition Year students from Castlerea Community School for a STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths] Passport for Inclusion workshop.”
Located at what was formerly Connelly’s Bar (and prior to that the Lake and Lantern, a popular local lounge bar), the facility was developed with LEADER funding and synchs with government aims to encourage remote working as a means of more regionally equitable economic development. The Ballinlough hub offers high-speed internet at eight work stations as well as a meeting room for those with home or hybrid working arrangements. Enquires and bookings can be made through info.ekdigitalhub@gmail.com and www.connectedhubs.ie.
Congratulations to Paul O'Malley, Hazelhill, winner of €500 in the Ballyhaunis GAA Club draw on an envelope sold in MacSuairtains. The next draw is in Paddy's Bar on December 17th. Meanwhile, at the club’s recent annual general meeting, the following officers were appointed for the coming year:
Patron - Fr. Stephen Farragher; President - Darby Lyons; Vice-President - Frankie Dillon; Chairperson - William Nestor; Vice-Chairperson - Noelle Barrett; Secretary - Peter Healy; Assistant Secretary- Fergal Walsh; Treasurer - Thomas Murphy; Assistant Treasurer - Robbie Herr; Registrars - Anne Cunnane and Stella O’Neill; PRO - Ciara Buckley; Auditors - James Reidy and Eamonn Murren; County Board Delegate - Padraic Regan; East Mayo Board Delegate - Paul Jordan; Oifigeach na Gaeilge - Gearoid MacGerarraidh; Coaching Officers - Eoghan Collins (Football) and Adrian Phillips (Hurling); Bord Na nÓg Officer - Brendan Donnellan; Assistant Bord na nÓg - Justin McDonagh; Children’s Officer - Lisa McConn; Safety Officer - Eamon Monaghan; Health and Wellbeing Officers - Lisa McConn and Alma Gallagher; Grounds Development Chairperson- Padraic Murphy; Football Representative - Conor Freeley; Hurling Representative - Keith Higgins; LGFA Representative - Anne Cunnane; Scór Representative - Margaret Monaghan.
The ALDI store, which opened in Ballyhaunis this summer, has outperformed the company’s expectations, according to management.
“We’ve been really pleased by the performance of our new store in Ballyhaunis, which has been even better than we had hoped,” said ALDI Ballyhaunis Store Manager, Charlene Kilgallon.
“From before the time we opened, we knew that customers in the area were excited to see ALDI coming to town… That’s continued since we opened our doors in June...”
ALDI declined to offer sales figures or comparative data for similar-sized stores.
A five-week programme helping locals to trace their family tree will commence on January 16 at the Community Hall in Ballyhaunis.
Hosted by Ballyhaunis Community Council, the 8pm sessions will introduce participants to the various sources and methods which will allow them to trace their lineage. Registration is required for the programme, which costs €5 per evening, including tea and coffee. Register at ballyhauniscommunitycouncil@gmail.com.
Ballyhaunis featured around the world on a recent Sky News broadcast with the channel’s Ireland correspondent Stephen Murphy visiting the town for a report on how attitudes to immigration in Ireland are changing.
Broadcast in the wake of the recent riot by right-wing agitators in Dublin, the report opened with footage inside the local mosque, focusing on local man Mohammed Cherbatji who was filmed at prayer and then at his business, Nour Foods. Cherbatji told the correspondent that he has seen the level of immigration increase significantly in recent years and expressed his hope that immigration is controlled, with immigrants vetted by Gardai.
“We don’t want any dangerous people” entering the country, said Mohammed.
A long-time presence in Ballyhaunis, Aleppo native Mohammed has built a successful meat business with customers around Ireland and internationally. Businesss has been “challenging” this year due to higher electricity and staffing costs as well as higher prices for wholesale meat inputs, he said.
Others interviewed for the Sky News report included Trinity College academic Anne Holohan and Carol Nolan, an independent TD for Laois-Offaly, who told Sky News she saw current levels of immigration as “unsustainable” in the context of a housing crisis.
Ballyhaunis Community School was one of two Mayo schools chosen for the visit of a litter reduction roadshow funded by the chewing gum industry. Promising “to drive positive behavioural change around attitudes to gum litter amongst students”, the Bin It! Roadshow featured an hour-long workshop, where students learned about correct litter disposal. Sponsored by chewing gum makers like Mars Wrigley, the workshop was set up to assuage the Government after mounting costs of chewing gum disposal costs to local authorities.
Initiated in 2007, the Gum Litter Taskforce is a collaboration between Food Drink Ireland, the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications, the chewing gum industry, and local authorities. A spokesperson for the GLT told this column that gum litter now stands at 8.6% of all litter, according to the 2022 National Litter Monitoring Survey, down from 26.4% when the campaign first began in 2007.
Ballyhaunis is home to 232 of the 1,257 individuals seeking asylum or protection who are housed in Mayo. Just two years ago, Ballyhaunis was still the location of the sole direct provision centre in the county but a major expansion of international protection (the term now used by the Government rather than direct provision) accommodation in Castlebar has changed this.
Figures provided to this column by the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth show that there are 26,000 individuals residing in international protection facilities in Ireland alongside 74,000 Ukrainian people who have sought accommodation here. Of the 26,000, nearly 6,000 have already received refugee status or permission to remain.
The International Protection Accommodation Service (IPAS) sources accommodation from third parties with the Ballyhaunis centre being owned and operated by Roscommon-based firm Bridgestock Care.
Once an individual has had their application for international protection determined, they no longer have an entitlement to accommodation from IPAS. Long-term residents of the IPAS facility in Ballyhaunis told this column that while they have received their status and permission to remain, they are unable to find private rental accommodation locally.
From January 23 last, the Government discontinued grocery and food vouchers for those with permission to remain in Ireland but a proposal to charge those with status – and thus with access to employment and social welfare – for accommodation has not been acted on, the Department said.
Two charities, the Peter McVerry Trust and DePaul, have been contracted by the Department to provide direct support in integrating people with status into the community, according to the departmental spokesperson.
