Barrett still considering Dáil run unless progress made on MUH

CASTLEBAR’S comeback kid Harry Barrett may still seek a higher office than Mayo County Council to see action taken with Mayo University Hospital (MUH).

Speaking to The Mayo News yesterday (Monday), the newly-elected Independent councillor refused to rule out a run for the Dáil for improved services at MUH.

Cllr Barrett also pledged to tackle housing, dereliction and speeding - among other issues - as a member of the Castlebar Municipal District Council.

Earlier this year, the former Castlebar town councillor became embroiled in a war of words with sitting councillors after the Minister for Housing rejected their local area plan.

Minister Darragh O’Brien said that the plan proposed by Castlebar Municipal District Council did not accord with existing planning guidelines.

Cllr Barrett blasted the plan put forward by sitting councillors as ‘Celtic Tiger development’ and vowed to advocate for a plan that would develop affordable housing on existing sites rather than new sites outside of the town centre.

“I’ll not blame sitting councillors, but I just think it’s been a gradual moving away from the bread and butter issues that’s happened over a long period of time,” said Cllr Barrett when asked about why his council campaign was successful.

“I’ve been told by the people in the Castlebar Electoral Area to get back to basics again, this is what they’ve been telling me. Get the ground crews out, get the potholes done, get the roads checked. We’re asking to reduce the speeds in our areas, reduce them, or campaign for that reduction.

“Elderly people are worried about the trolley situation, same worry about the lack of doctors. They are the issues at the doors. They are just a selection of issues that they want me to continue with, that I have to continue with.”

Cllr Barrett said he would monitor the trolley figures at MUH in the coming months, describing the ongoing lack of hospital bed space as ‘a major embarrassment for the government and HSE’.

It was recently announced that 96 new acute in-patient beds will be delivered at Mayo University Hospital between 2029 and 2031.

It has also received planning for a new emergency department. Proposals are being developed for a new accommodation block at the Castlebar hospital.

“If it’s a case that the trolley situation hasn’t improved, no doubt, I will have to put my name forward as a candidate, based on the hospital issue,” he said.

“It’s gone on far too long. Where we have a situation where 171 people in this constitieuncy died on trolleys in Mayo University Hospital in the last five years. That, to me, is unconscionable in 2024, and it’s an absolute major embarrassment to the government and the HSE that that has been allowed to happen.”