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Independent Ballina town councillor Gerry Ginty hit out at this week’s Ballina Town Council meeting at the Government’s plans for raising the housing stock of the council, by getting town councils to enter into letting agreements for newly built homes with developers rather than the council itself building houses.

Ballina Town Council has agreed to fund its share of an agreement among the three town councils in the county and Mayo County Council for the FAI development officer for the next year to the sum of €7,500.

Ballina will get a €250,000 boost for RAPID prorgrammes following an annoucement this week by Minister for Community, Rural and Gaelacht affairs Éamon Ó Cuív. The funding is Ballina’s share in one-off funding announced for the five new towns which were given RAPID status this year. The towns will share in €1.25 million from the Dormant Accounts Fund. The funding will be drawn down over two years and will be used for stand alone projects such as playgrounds, improving disabled and community facilities, and enducation and environmental improvments.

The Ballyloughane Road is “nothing short of a disgrace” and repairs and reinstatement works must be carried out “immediately”, particularly in the area where new apartments are being built.

The tough balancing act of coming up with a balanced budget for 2010 looks to be getting harder for the executive of Castlebar Town Council. Next Tuesday the council will meet to try to thrash out a budget for the coming year, Town manager Seamus Granahan has recommend a zero per cent increase in the rates for business in the town in his manager’s report. However for the councillors that is not good enough as a number of independent councillors and the Fine Gael councillors will be looking for a reduction in the rates.

The elected members of Ballina Town Council and the management executive of the council welcomed the striking of their annual budget this week, which saw no increase in the commercial rate for business in the town. Fine Gael councillor Mark Winters told the meeting, “We’re coming off the back of a very hard year for everyone and we have bucked the trend in not increasing the rates on the business people in the town. Everyone worked very hard and long on this budget, the increased efficiencies we have seen and the value for money we have been getting reflects very well on the council management. We’ve only had to increase the rate one year in the last five. We’ve also now started to make a serious push for Ballina to become the destination of choice and our allocation towards the marketing of the town can only lead to good things for the future.”

Independent Councillor Frank Durcan has called for the acting county manager Joe Beirne to consider his position after he accused him of benefiting from the change of a junction on the Pontoon/Turlough Road in Castlebar. Cllr Durcan alleged to a meeting of Mayo County Council that Mr Beirne had not fulfilled his duties in disclosing his interests in a property in the area where the works were being carried out. The property Cllr Durcan referred to is the premises where Mr Beirne’s wife carries out her business.

Despite some members of Castlebar Town Council saying last week they wanted a massive 10 per cent cut in rates in the town for 2010, the elected members settled on the figure of a 2.5 per cent cut in the rates.

Fine Gael’s decision to push through its four nominees to the VEC and not give the opposition members in the council a chance to put through one nominee led to bad feeling among the other councillors at the monthly meeting of the local authority.

Following a lengthy debate, with plenty of cross table and cross party swipes at policies and abilities, the elected members of Castlebar Town Council voted by eight votes to one to back a motion by Independent Councillor Frank Durcan which said: “The members of Castlebar Town Council call on the Government to indict for the act of treason, the politicians and bankers who were grossly responsible for the undermining of the economy over the past 10 years”.