In need of a helping hand

A LOT DONE, MORE TO DO Projects like a new playground have been provided for Ballyhaunis but problems like the integration of the town’s 42 different nationalities and the relief of traffic congestion in the town centre have yet to addressed.

In need of a helping hand

The Peoples Agenda Ballyhaunis
Daniel Carey

IN 1984, Garret FitzGerald was Taoiseach, John Treacy won an Olympic silver medal, and a Local Area Plan for Ballyhaunis was drawn up. Twenty-three years later, that plan is still the basis on which decisions relating to local development are taken. For Ballyhaunis Chamber of Commerce CEO Donal Shanaghy, the ‘ridiculous’ delay is indicative of the the way the town has been bypassed.
Which is, ironically, just what the town needs – a bypass. On a midweek afternoon last week, traffic snaked through the narrow Main Street. It is, according to locals, like this every day. Members of the Chamber of Commerce recently met with Enda Kenny, John O’Mahony and John Carty to highlight their concerns.
A local distributor road was put on paper as long ago as the early 1980s. The first stage was finally built in the early 1990s, connecting the Knock Road and Claremorris Road. A map on the wall of the Chamber offices at the Enterprise Centre marks in yellow the rest of the proposed route.
“It was forgotten about,” Donal Shanaghy told The Mayo News. “The town needs to be redesigned and restructured to allow the larger traffic that doesn’t need to go through the town to be able to get around it. I understand that it will be included in the Local Area Plan for the town.”
The status of that new plan (the sequel to the 1984 effort) is somewhat unclear. Shanaghy gets a different message from Mayo County Council every time he enquiries: work on the plan is beginning, progressing, or hasn’t even started.
Another cause of concern are the approach roads to the town, which are ‘a disgrace’, according to Shanaghy. The N83 to Galway (which comes under the remit of the National Roads Authority) is ‘particularly bad’. Public car parks are ‘very neglected’ and people are not ‘comfortable using them’. One car park near the swimming pool is invariably overcrowded, and is next to a riverside area which has been the site of anti-social behaviour. Another car park off Knox Street is ‘rarely used’ because vehicles there have been vandalised.
This would, he says, be less of a problem if the Garda presence in the town was increased. The Garda station is officially open from 10am-1pm six days a week. In practice, local gardaí are often called out to duty in Ireland West Airport Knock and the station left unmanned even in the morning. Minister for Justice Michael McDowell says it’s a matter for Garda management.
The CEO is critical of Mayo County Council in many respects, but acknowledges their support in getting planning permission for a proposed 96-bedroom hotel with leisure centre. A total of 82 housing units and 11 retail units have also got the go-ahead. Shanaghy hopes some initial negativity in the local business community regarding the hotel can be overcome.
A recent survey by Ballyhaunis Community School students established that there are no fewer than 42 different nationalities in the area. The long-established Pakistani/Syrian population has now been supplemented by more recent immigration. The non-nationals are, Shanaghy says, ‘excellent workers’ who are ‘very diligent’, but having people from so many different cultures ‘creates its own pressure’ on the rural town.
“I have attended a number of meetings in Galway and Dublin where I’ve seen that the supports are there [for non-nationals], but we don’t have the same supports here,” he says. “Not a great amount of effort was made over the years by the powers-that-be within the country (be they government or local authority) to help people to integrate. And there’s a greater need for assistance to be given now that we have other nationalities and communities.”

The People Speak
Eddie Murphy Jnr
“THE state of the roads are atrocious. We’ve been promised a bypass for 20 years. The bit we got connects the Claremorris Road with the Knock Road, which isn’t the most essential part of the bypass at all. Car parking is another issue. There’s a serious traffic problem, because people double park rather than use the car parks, because they’re not safe. I wouldn’t park my own car in the car park, to be honest. Garda resources are also an issue.”

David McConn
“I’D love to see the distributor road finished. A bypass for the town is vital. A hotel is also a major need. We have to go to Claremorris, Knock, Charlestown or elsewhere for our functions. The schools are growing and have applied for extensions, which should be high on the agenda. We’re in the centre of Connacht geographically. It’s about time we became the centre of political power and persuasion. The time for talking is over. Let’s walk the walk.”

Michael Daly
“PARKING is the main thing that needs to be sorted out in Ballyhaunis. There’s no proper access to parking and the streets were narrowed by four or five feet. There are some good local businesses who have been here for years, but we also need a major industry. We should also have a proper bypass. Half a bypass is no good. Some people think bypasses take business away from a town, but I think they work.”