Neill O’Neill
THE high price of property in Westport was lamented last week by GOAL founder John O’Shea (pictured). Speaking at a civic reception accorded to him by the Town Council after the GOAL Golf Classic fundraiser, the former Westport resident said that it disappoints him to hear that young people from the town cannot afford to live in Westport.
He also called on the Council to create a scheme which would make houses more affordable, and stop young ‘covies’ having to go elsewhere to live. Westport currently has some of the highest property prices in Mayo, and is among the most expensive places in Ireland, outside of large urban centres, in which to buy a house.
“One of the things that has disappointed me when I have come down to Westport is the fact that I hear of young Westport boys and girls – real covies - who have to start their married lives outside of the town because they can’t afford a property here.
“I know we have to be equitable and fair and worry about constitutions, but at the same time I would appeal to the urban council to use their ingenuity and inventiveness to come up with a scheme, some form of preferential treatment for young Westport boys and girls.”
John O’Shea, now in his sixties, spent what he called ‘many happy years’ in Westport after his family moved to the town in 1949.
“It’s a great privilege to be born in a town like Westport, but it is a greater one still to live in it,” he said. “If the urban council and others in Westport can make it easier for the young people of the town, who were born in town, who have that luck and privilege, then they should do it.
“It will call for a bit of courage because these things always do, but I know if I was a young Westport lad, born and bred here and about to get married here, I would fight hard to get my little plot and to be able to live here.”
