New President outlines priorities for Westport

New President outlines priorities for Westport


Neill O’Neill

THE new President of Westport Chamber of Commerce, Danny McLoughlin, has called for some ‘fresh young blood’ to join the wealth of experienced people already involved with the organisation.
Shortly after receiving the chain of office from outgoing President Simon Cronin at the AGM of the Chamber of Commerce in Hotel Westport last Friday night, Mr McLoughlin outlined that his aim for his presidency is to work with all members of the Chamber, and other key groups in the town such as Westport Town Council, Destination Westport, Westport Tourism Organisation, Tidy Towns etc, in order that the Chamber can fully understand the issues that exist for businesses in Westport, and then address them.
He also expressed his desire to boost the number of members in the Chamber, and said that in a town with over 200 businesses, the Chamber needs to have more than 60 paid-up members in order to fully understand the problems faced by people in all sectors of business, and be able to truly represent the business people of Westport.
He wasted no time on this and called on all present at the packed meeting to fill in a questionnaire that was left on every seat, which sought answers on issues affecting businesses, and what the priorities of Westport Chamber of Commerce should be over the next two years.
A native of Donegal, Danny is Director of Engineering with Allergan Pharmaceuticals in Westport. He first moved to the town over 25 years ago, and apart from a spell in Puerto Rico with Allergan, has spent the intervening years living locally. He is married to Finnoula Reidy from Castlebar Street, and the coupe live in Belclare with their young family.
As President of the Chamber, Danny will be aided in his role by a newly elected team: Vice-President Sheila O’Donnell, Secretary, Tom Tracey, Treasurer Robert Coakley, and PRO Neill O’Neill.
Earlier, Simon Cronin outlined some of the Chamber’s activities over the past two years, which ranged from lobbying for business interests, promoting businesses, attracting business and enterprise to Westport, providing services and information for members, and fostering economic co-operation in the local community.
As a lobbying force, the Chamber played a role in bringing natural gas and the new 110kv ESB line and sub-station to Westport. They were also significantly involved in the development of the new IDA Industrial and Technology Park and continue to promote local businesses, particularly through initiatives like the Spirit of Christmas Festival. The Westport Chamber also runs courses in areas such as waste management, customer care, visual merchandising and employer and employee legislation.
As well as these initiatives the Westport Chamber of Commerce supervises the local FÁS Community Employment Scheme, which constitutes a significant amount of their work, and maintains 26 jobs in the town.
As his tenure drew to a close last Friday, Mr Cronin sounded a warning that the Chamber needs cross-group representation in order to be able to respond to problems quickly, and said that the Spirit of Christmas Festival is costing the Chamber up to €4,000 annually, which needs to be addressed as it is becoming too expensive to run.
Before presenting the chain of office to Danny McLoughlin, he thanked Westport Town Manager, Peter Hynes, and the staff and elected members of Westport Town Council, with whom he said the Chamber enjoys a great relationship. He also thanked the executive committee and members of the Chamber, and their sub-committees – particularly Louise Berry, Chairperson of the Retail Sub-Committee, for her work on the Spirit of Christmas Festival – FÁS, and all the agencies and groups with whom the Chamber works locally.