Council should cut consultants fees - Ryan

Council should cut consultants’ fees – Ryan


Michael Duffy

THE large amounts of money spent by Mayo County Council on consultancy fees for relatively small projects came in for harsh criticism at yesterday’s (Monday’s) meeting of the Ballinrobe Electoral Area committee.
Cllr Damien Ryan (pictured) said there had been ‘disbelief’ in the town when it was stated at the last meeting that it would cost in the region of €400,000 to replace a 150-year-old footbridge in the Bowers area of the town.
“I have spoken to developers in the town and they are adamant they could replace the bridge for as little as €80,000 or €100,000. We simply cannot allow a situation to develop where there is no access from the town centre to the Bowers area for the summer months.
“It seems to me most of this money goes to consultants when we should be getting the Council’s own staff to do the work. Or we award the entire project to a contractor by tender and let him do all the costing. There has to be a cheaper way to get this job done in a short space of time.”
Cllr Patsy O’Brien said the people of the town were asking how is it justifiable to spend €400,000 in the current climate when the job could clearly be done for less.
Mr Patsy Bourke, Senior Executive Officer, said the new bridge would need to be sympathetic to the existing structure, and the €400,000 was an ‘all-in’ cost. He said currently there was only €180,000 of the money designated for the Bowers Walk left and it now appeared that this money would all have to be redirected to begin work on the footbridge.
“I can assure the councillors we will not spend a penny more than we need to on the bridge. We have no option but to go to tender but we will be taking the bottom price and all contractors in the town will be able to tender.”