Search Results for 'Gerry Ginty'

The Ballina Town Council is to rename Pearse Street in the town to iStreet for a day as part of the town’s effort to win €50,000 worth of advertising in a competition a radio station is running. Fine Gael Councillor Mark Winters proposed the idea at the meeting of the town council on Wednesday night as the elected members discussed the renovations of the street which will be completed early next month. Cllr Winters told the meeting that “ iRadio are running a competition where they are giving away €50,000 worth of advertising for a town, where the best dressed shop with an iRadio theme would win €10,000 for themselves and another €40,000 for the promotion of the town. Winning a prize like this would be a huge boost for the town in promoting itself and the station is aimed at the 16 to 35-year-old market who are the big consumers of goods and services, and this kind of advertising could only be a boost to the town.” His proposal was seconded by Cllr Barry McLoughlin.

The Ballina Town Council agreed to give Ballina Chamber €20,000 for the promotion of the town at the monthly meeting of the council this week, but the decision did lead to some heated debate in the council chamber. Ballina Chamber had initially made the application a number of months ago, but the decision was held off after some of the members of the council expressed their concerns that they would not be included in the decision of where the money would be spent, and requested the chamber to report back to them as to what exactly the €20,000 would be spent on. Before the debate began, Mayor Mary Kelly told the meeting that she believed that Cllr Mark Winters should excuse himself from the chamber for the item because he is the secretary of the chamber, Cllr Winters objected to this telling the meeting that he was there as a councillor and that his position in the chamber was a voluntary one, and he was not getting paid for his work with the chamber. Town clerk Carmel Murphy agreed that Cllr Winter would not have a conflict of interest as he was a member of a voluntary organisation and not a paid staff member.

Following a long and protracted debate going back to 2007, the members of the Ballina Town Council decided to keep the jetty located at Bachelors Walk in the town. In 2007 Fianna Fáil Councillor Willie Nolan had a notice of motion supported to remove the jetty, however nothing had happened on it up to a number of months ago when the councillor raised the issue once again. At the March meeting of the local authority the elected members asked town engineer Michael O’Grady to complete a report on the jetty and to recommend either to remove or retain the jetty. In his report Mr O’Grady outlined that the jetty itself was in good condition, and that while some work would have to be done on the deck of the jetty it was in very good condition and had cost very little to maintain since it was constructed in 1983 at a cost of €28,000, with only €3,450 being spent on the decking in 2004. He also said regarding safety concerns around the jetty that by its nature it is a dangerous place as it is intended as an access point to the water. He went on to say that to upgrade the jetty would cost an initial estimate of €6,710 but, that was only an initial estimate. Other costs could be found when work was commenced on the removal, and an appropriate assessment would have to be carried out on it by the Parks and Wildlife department, and that cost had not been factored in. Mr O’Grady recommended the retention of the jetty by the council. Six of the eight members present favoured retaining the jetty, with Cllr Nolan and Independent councillor Gerry Ginty calling for its removal. Issues of anti social behaviour in the area had been cited as a reason for removing the jetty. Most of the councillors agreed however that it would be a bad day for the town if they had to remove a piece of infrastructure because of anti social behaviour and said that it was not the jetty which was causing the anti social behaviour.

The new €1.65 million footbridge in Ballina which was officially opened last October has finally been given a name. Ballina Town Council adopted The Salmon Weir bridge as the name for the bridge by a vote of five to two, which was against the will of the majority of the people who made submissions on the naming. Cllr Michelle Mulherin along with her party colleague Cllr Mark Winters to name the bridge after Mary Robinson, with Fianna Fáil councillors Willie Nolan and Frances McAndrew, and Independent councillors Mary Kelly, Peter Clarke, and Gerry Ginty voting against it. Both Cllr Johnny O’Malley and Cllr Barry McLoughlin were not present at the vote as they had to leave the meeting early to be part of a guard of honour for the late John Forde, whose funeral was taking place that evening.

Controversial Castlebar Independent councillor Frank Durcan slammed the amount of money that will be spent by Mayo County Council on housing and maintaining the Clarke Collection in Ballina. Under the freedom of information act Cllr Durcan received a copy of the contract entered into by Mayo County Council with Mrs Anne Clarke the widow of the late Jackie Clarke who amassed the collection over a number of years.

The elected members of Mayo County Council this week hit out at the decision by the council executive to close the two civic amenity sites at Derrinumera and Rathroeen at 1pm on Saturdays.

Controversial Castlebar Independent councillor Frank Durcan slammed the amount of money that will be spent by Mayo County Council on housing and maintaining the Clarke Collection in Ballina. Under the freedom of information act Cllr Durcan received a copy of the contract entered into by Mayo County Council with Mrs Anne Clarke the widow of the late Jackie Clarke who amassed the collection over a number of years.

A request by Ballina Chamber of Commerce for €20,000 worth of funding for a number of promotional projects for the town, from Ballina Town Council’s budget of €40,000 for tourism promotion, angered Ballina Méara, Cllr Mary Kelly this week. Town clerk Carmel Murphy outlined a request from the Chamber to the members of the town council for a number of projects the Chamber were looking to promote in the town over the coming year. The projects included the launch of the redeveloped Pearse Street, the promotion of the Jackie Clarke Library, the All-Ireland pipe band competition, a monthly e-zine with news and events from the town, and the continued promotion of Ballina as the salmon capital of Ireland.

Fine Gael councillor Mark Winters has hit out at the lack of local jobs created by the multi-million euro regeneration project in St Patrick’s estate in Ballina.

The issue of late night opening of takeaways in Ballina was raised at the Ballina joint policing committee this week. The JPC resolved to write to all the businesses in the town to see if an earlier common closure time could be agreed on. The issue was raised by Fine Gael councillor Barry McLoughlin. He told the meeting that there was one rule for one and one for another, as most takeaways had trading curfews included in their planning permission.