Funding allocation of €390,000 for West Mayo ‘an insult’

Neill O'Neill

A proposed allocation for discretionary general expenditure of €390,000 in the West Mayo Municipal District for 2016 was rejected and sent back to the Chief Executive’s office yesterday, with a demand that it be raised to €500,000.
At a budget meeting attended by five of the seven West Mayo councillors, there was a unanimous rebuke of the offer of €390,000, which was called insulting to the people of West Mayo. This year’s allocation was €440,000, having initially been suggested at €250,000, and the drop of €50,000 angered the councillors.
Known as the GMA (General Municipal Allocation), Director of Services Tom Gilligan stated that the amount given is dependent on the total income available and is distributed pro rata across Mayo based on population statistics. He said not included here was the significant money spent on other items in the area, such as infrastructure.
Under questioning from Cllr Paul McNamara, Mr Gilligan revealed that the rates raised in West Mayo are put into a central pot and not related to the money made available to the district under the GMA.
Most vocal and impassioned on the issue was Achill Cllr McNamara, who demanded to know how much money is raised in rates in West Mayo.
“I’m not belittling the amount but €390,000 is a ridiculous figure based on the size of West Mayo and the rates here. Yes, the council spend more money in the area, but that is on maintaining what they own, like roads, in the same way the ESB have to maintain their network. We were asked recently to sanction a loan of €2 million for the new swimming pool in Castlebar, we will likely be asked to sanction a loan for Westport House shortly and we are always promoting the Wild Atlantic Way.
“Now, finally, when we have a good product, and tourism by the way is the only industry in parts of west Mayo – fishing is gone, agriculture is on its knees and people are leaving from Knock airport every week to work abroad – it is ridiculous and an insult to the people of West Mayo that this is all we are getting.”
Councillors Michael Holmes, Christy Hyland and Brendan Mulroy were all in full agreement with this, with former town councillors Hyland and Mulroy pointing out that they used to have a similar allocation just for Westport Town, but were now being asked to accept the same amount to cover ‘from Erriff to Aughleam’.
Cllr Rose Conway-Walsh came a little later to the discussion and asked was there any point in councillors objecting to the amount if the council’s senior management will just go ahead as they want with the allocation amounts.
“There is a strategy of divide and conquer in this county and it is not acceptable to me as a councillor that there are games being played on this,” she said, in very strong tone of voice.
“Cllr McNamara said it was annoying to have he and his colleagues arguing back and forth over a €50,000 increase.
“There will be millions moved around on pages at budget time and here we are arguing over €50,000 we badly need for our areas.”