Climbing wall delay tips councillor over the edge

The ongoing delay in installing the promised climbing wall in Castlebar has tipped a local councillor over the edge as he told management of Mayo County Council that "nothing is being done, nothing is being rolled out and he is nothing but angry".

Speaking at the April meeting of the local authority, Cllr Blackie Gavin said: “This is a shovel-ready project in this town and I have raised it day and night at meeting after meeting and am getting no results. It is shocking what is going on. Nothing is being done. Nothing is being rolled out. We have a derelict hotel across the road from the Áras here [former Imperial Hotel], which got over €11.5 million of URDF funding, and here we are, nothing being done on it either. It’s no wonder our towns and villages are falling down and people are getting so angry out there.

“This is the worst council I have sat on since I was first elected in 1994. It is terrible. We are bringing the messages from the people to the executive of this council, but it is falling on deaf ears and it’s backward this town is going and this county.

“We need some urgent action and a small bit of respect for councillors who raise issues. We get no feedback or nothing. When you raise a topic, you won’t hear another word until you raise it again at the next meeting.

“I have different issues that I have been raising for the last ten years. I attended an event recently regarding a development where I was born and reared, and the council’s communications department showed the wrong area in the press release. What is happening, that the wrong picture is put in the papers for an opening of houses in Lower Charles Street? And the people that made the effort to turn up on the day didn’t see themselves there at all.” 

Cllr Gavin told council chief executive Kevin Kelly that it was "time things were sorted out".

"I am a born, bred and proud Castlebar man but I am not happy as a public representative. It is scandalous what is going on. I never saw things as bad. My twenty years on Castlebar Town Council were the 20 best years of my political career. Since then, all our money has been sucked away, the €1m we used to receive from the pay and display parking, all the funding for capital projects, gone. Under the town council we completed so many projects, from Mountain View over to Barrack Bridge. I want action and am pleading now with you chief executive. People are asking me why things are not being done and they are angry and I am angry, I have to say.” 

Mr Kelly assured Cllr Gavin that the tendering process has been completed for the climbing wall but that there is “a significant gap between funding available and the cost of doing works”, adding: “We want to close out that discussion as quickly as possible and do want to complete the project and we are proactively engaged on that.”

• Published as part of the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.