The road to Ballina and the road to Mayo County Council

THE road to electoral success in Ballina could well be in the tarmac in the byways, highways (if there were any) and grass-filled bóithríns of North Mayo.

At least that’s the impression you’d get from speaking to the two most popular politicians in the Ballina Local Electoral Area, Cllr Mark Duffy (Independent), Cllr John O’Hara and the young pretender Joe Faughnan (Independent).

The words on everyone’s lips in Ballina town back in April were ‘immigration’, ‘consultation’, ‘services’ et cetera.

Those words were never mentioned when The Mayo News spoke to three of the most high-profile candidates in North Mayo about the issues which most irked the good citizens.

One thing did come up quite a good bit, however.

“The first thing I’d like to do is the traffic in Ballina is up in a hames,” said Cllr O’Hara, not leaving a shoe in the issue.

“There’s too much traffic for the roads. The roads aren’t able to carry it. And if it’s one thing this government needs to do is you need the bypass N26 to our town,” repeating a call made on several occasions by every member of Ballina Municipal District Council.

“We’re out on our own down there as, I often said before. That’s the most important thing if our town is going to exist at all, because Ballina will not exist and it won't be able to handle what’s happening and the road structure, I’d say it’s 50 years behind time. We need it urgently. That’s the most important thing we need in Ballina.”

That same N26 is the first thing Cllr Duffy mentions when asked about project he’d like to see in the next five years.

“I have learned a lot over my last five years, but in terms of more pragmatic things on the doorstep, road safety in neighbours and residential areas and housing estates is something that is very close to many people’s hearts They really want to see that being sorted,” said Cllr Duffy, who quit his job to become a full-time county councillor in 2019.

Cllr Joe Faughnan, a man who knows the roads around Mayo fairly well from his playing and managerial career with Conn Rangers, said road safety was ‘a huge thing’ on the doorsteps, among other issues.

He’s not yet doing a Michael Ring on it and posing with the thumbs skywards on a new highway to North Mayo.

“People just talking about different turns and different avenues to come out onto the main roads that they didn’t have proper site in different spots,” is how the newly-elected Faughnan summed up the voters’ road safety concerns.

“That was probably the main one. There was a load of different issues, I have them all written down at home.”

He’d do well to keep a copy of that. No two voters are the same, but they all travel the roads.

Just ask the two men who topped the poll in Ballina.