Council planners ‘can help Mayo to win the All-Ireland’

A Castlebar councillor has called on planners in Mayo County Council to look on their role as a means of helping the county to win the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship by ensuring that rural areas have enough people living in them to field GAA teams.

Cllr Harry Barrett made his remarks during a lengthy discussion on planning at the January meeting of the council, telling the council executive: “I would like to see planning in this council as a case of helping Mayo to win the All-Ireland; that we make sure we have healthy GAA clubs with strong numbers, and make it easy for young couples to rear their families in this county. At the moment, these clubs are seriously struggling and there is also a growing working poor that can’t make enough to survive.

“Set the system up so that people have enough to set up house and home in Mayo. This needs to be front and centre of the social fabric in Mayo. It is a largely rural county and an area deemed as lagging by the EU, which means it is behind by 75%," Cllr Barrett said.

“We should make it as easy as possible for young people to get planning. Imposing residency clauses makes no sense in a scenario where we have called our situation a housing emergency. Young couples already have so many competing bills to pay. The last thing they want is friction from planning and I appeal to the authorities to make the planning system as seamless as possible so we can have as many young families enrolling their children in schools and clubs so we can get Mayo on the All-Ireland stage again.”

• Published as part of the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.