"Lot of wind" in Town Council return rumours says councillor
The Mayo County Council offices at Clare, Claremorris where the meeting was held
A local councillor has said if elected representatives from outside of Mayo’s three urban centres advocated for the return of Town Councils, it would be like turkeys voting for Christmas.
Cllr Neil Cruise made his comments in support of remarks made by Cllr Richard Finn regarding a potential return of Town Councils, which were abolished in 2014 by then Minister for Local Government Phil Hogan at last week’s Claremorris-Swinford Municipal District.
“The Municipal District system is one of the smartest moves ever made in local government,” said Cllr Finn.
“There is a lot of wind and innuendo about the Taoiseach supporting a return of Town Councils. The people of the west of Ireland do not have any support for Town Councils because it will reduce funding coming into our Municipal areas.”
“Their return would only benefit Westport, Ballina and Castlebar.” Cllr Cruise said smaller towns have benefitted from the introduction of MDs.
“If we advocated for this, it would be like turkeys voting for Christmas. The investment in our roads and projects has been fantastic,” he said.
Cllr Damien Ryan, who is a member of a taskforce dedicated to discussing the future of local government, said it is not the taskforce’s goal to bring back Town Councils.
“Our terms of reference are not to return to Town Councils, it is about the future of local government. We need to let the taskforce do their work and see the results,” he said.
He added that the solution was to strengthen existing MDs and said he supported each MD receiving 10% of the overall Council budget.
“If Town Councils were effective, they wouldn’t have been abolished. Rural and urban need to be equal.”
“MDs work well but they need to be stronger. We need to reinforce them with finance and by devolving finance down to the MDs.”
Cllr Patsy O’Brien said he was not against reinstating Town Councils so long as funding streams towards smaller towns and rural areas were maintained. However, he said he feared that Government parties would enforce a return of two-tier local government systems in the three largest towns.
“A €350 allocation to a community group is the difference between keeping the doors open or closed. Town Councils would be a backwards step,” he said.
“I fear that at the top level, there will be a stick approach to this from the two government parties.”
