On a warm May day, a debate began about Westport's Christmas lights!

A Westport councillor has raised concerns that Christmas 2024 may be cancelled in Westport due to a lack of funding for the popular annual Christmas lights display.

Cllr Peter Flynn told last week's meeting of Westport-Belmullet Municipal District that the Christmas lights in Westport were "in a shambles" in 2019 until the four local councillors "put the necessary funding in place" through the General Municipal Allocation (GMA).

"Now we have one of the best Christmas lights displays in the country. The town has become a special place for children right around Mayo as well as visitors at Christmas, but now my understanding is that we are in a situation where none of us know who will be elected to the new council in June and whether this funding will continue. We are effectively going to cancel Christmas because we don’t have the funding in place for the Christmas lights next year. It is important whoever the new council is that we get clarity on that.” 

District manager Padraig Walsh commented that it seemed strange on a warm May day to be talking about Christmas lights, adding: “We were lucky to get a series of funding opportunities in the last few years that allowed us buy a lot of new lights of various types. For safety regulation purposes, we appoint an electrical contractor to do the lights every Christmas. When you look at the cost of inflation and the range of lighting we now have available, the erection, removal and transporting of the trees and all involved in the process, I estimate it will cost €60,000 for next Christmas and currently in the pot from GMA contributions we have around €20,000.” 

He added that hoped the councillors who are in the chamber following the election would also support the annual costs.

"If not, we would have to compromise on the display people would enjoy, so clearly we would have a problem.” 

Cllr Christy Hyland said other communities in the MD area could not be ignored and many felt hard done by with a figure of €60,000 being spent in Westport. 

“What about Newport, Louisburgh, all those other towns in the MD area? People ask what are we doing spending that amount, they are doing their lights for €4,000.” 

Cllr John O’Malley said some towns do it for far less or even nothing, and they still look pretty. 

“This is an awful lot of money just for getting the lights put up and down each year. Are we that rich we can do that? Is it fair to be asking the councillors to fund this with their GMA money and only give other towns a little bit?” 

Cllr Gerry Coyle concluded: “This is absolutely ridiculous that we are talking about Christmas lights in the middle of May. It is off the radar when you look at all the other work that needs doing, between roads and potholes and water lying in them. There are a hundred more important jobs that need to be done.”