McDonnell calls on council to 'revisit' contentious motion

A long-serving member of Mayo County Council has claimed the local authority is being "penalised" for its controversial decision to cease all cooperation with the Department of Integration.

On January 15, councillors passed a cross-party motion to stop all of its dealings with the Department concerning the housing of asylum seekers. The motion, tabled by Independent Cllr Michael Kilcoyne, called for all co-operation to cease immediately between council staff and the Department until such time as an improved strategy is put in place to properly co-ordinate the provision of additional services for communities hosting refugees. The decision was made against the backdrop of public protests in Ballinrobe and Claremorris.

Fianna Fáil Cllr Al McDonnell described the decision as a “grave error of judgement” and called on his colleagues to revisit it, adding that he fears the local authority will not receive any large-scale Exchequer funding until it changes its position. Cllr McDonnell also referred to comments by An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar who said local authorities could not have an “a la carte relationship” with the Government.

"Our knuckles were rapped," he said, adding that the decision damaged the county and the country.

“My view is that we have been penalised for the controversial stance we took at our meeting in January, and I think it now needs to be revisited for the overall good of the county,” he said.

Illustrating his point, Cllr McDonnell noted that Mayo County Council received €4m in Active Travel funding earlier this month compared to Galway City and Galway County, which received a combined total of €12.2m, while County Cork was given €48m.

In 2023, Mayo received €4.5m for similar projects, and he believes Mayo’s funding should have been significantly higher.

“Subsequent to the Active Travel funding announcement, there was grant assistance given for piers and harbours with many millions of euro around the country and Mayo was expecting some. What did we get? Zero,” Cllr McDonnell added.

However, several councillors strongly disagreed with Cllr McDonnell's hypothesis. Castlebar-based Fine Gael Cllr Donna Sheridan described it as "farcical rubbish" and said there was no connection between the motion and the fall-off in funding.

“I spoke to some of my colleagues and the same issue is happening in Galway County and counties all over the country of funding being announced and funding being cut. This is not an issue with what we said or with what we did in this chamber, and I think it is terrible to suggest that.” 

Claremorris-based Cllr Tom Connolly also insisted he did not believe the motion had any effect on the Active Travel funding. 

“That allegation by Cllr McDonnell, who did not even attend the [January] meeting, is wrong,” he added.