County Manager stresses no enforced redundancies in Council

Manager stresses no enforced redundancies in Council


Anton McNulty

MAYO County Manager, Peter Hynes has told councillors that the need to reduce costs in Mayo County Council should not have been news to anyone and that they are ‘living in a new world’ since the EU/IMF bailout.
Mr Hynes was speaking at the beginning of the special meeting of Mayo County Council which was called following the confirmation that the Council were seeking up to cut up to 152 staff. The County Manager stressed that there would be no forced redundancies and the ‘downsizing’ would come under the provisions of the Croke Park agreement.
Mr Hynes added that negotiations with the Union representatives were on-going and if they could ‘engage positively’ and reach agreements on flexible working weeks, they may be able to balance the budget and there would be less cuts than the proposed number.
However, Westport Fine Gael councillor, Peter Flynn was scathing of the behaviour of the Unions and claimed they did not represent the ‘view of the vast majority of the workers’. He accused them of being irresponsible and unprofessional and added that the Council needed to show leadership and not have the ‘tail wagging the dog’.
Cllr Flynn also called on the Director of Services for Corporate Affairs, Joe Loftus to ‘consider his position’ after he accused him of being ‘unprofessional’ in dealing with the way the news broke and keeping the councillors in the dark. Mr Hynes defended Mr Loftus saying that he did release a statement to the media and that the ‘buck stopped with me’ and nobody else.
There were heated exchanges in the Council Chamber with the ten Fianna FΡil, Sinn Féin and Independent councillors who called for the meeting accused by Fine Gael of bringing no alternatives to the meeting and coming out with ‘the same old story’.
The ten councillors who did call for the meeting said that there was great fear among the Council staff and the general public that Council services would be ‘seriously compromised’. There was also anger among the councillors that they were not informed that the Council were considering these job cuts and did not appreciate learning about it in the media. Mr Hynes said he regretted that the matter found its way into the public domain in the way it did.
Cllr Blackie Gavin told the meeting that during the weather crisis over the winter, it was the Council staff who were out on the ground and he was concerned the Council were going down the road of the privatisation of services.
Sinn Féin’s Cllr Gerry Murray said the area offices were overloaded with work and he did not believe the Council executive had the latitude to reduce staff numbers by such a scale. He said the 2011 estimates were adopted in ‘good faith’ and said any changes should be adopted at the next estimates meeting in 2012.
Cllr Richard Finn from Claremorris argued that there were only 90 staff in the east Mayo area compared to 240 in the 1980’s and there was more work to do, while Cllr Michael Kilcoyne said there was not enough staff to finish last year’s work.
However, their arguments did not wash with Fine Gael councillor Gerry Coyle who said that one machine can now do the job of 20 men.
At the end of the meeting, Mr Hynes said he wished to point out that Mayo County Council was a team and cuts were not an ‘us against them’ argument and that Mayo would continue to be open for business.