Search Results for 'Paddy McGuinness'

The monthly meeting of Mayo County Council was adjourned this week, as a mark of respect to two of the elected members of the council whose parents died recently. Glowing tributes were paid to both Mr Michael Mulherin, father of Ballina-based Councillor Michelle Mulherin and Angela O’Brien, mother of south-Mayo Cllr Patsy O’Brien.

The summer-long stand off between the elected members of Mayo County Council and Minister for Environment John Gormley will once again raise its head this coming Monday. In adjourning the monthly meeting of the council last Monday, the members agreed to hold a special meeting to discuss the devlopment plan issue this coming Monday September 15 at 2pm.

Rural Ireland is benefiting from the fact that Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs Éamon Ó Cuív TD has been given his own budget, according to the Fine Gael whip on Mayo County Council.

The 2008 Mayo Science and Technology Festival took place from November 3 to 9 throughout Mayo, with an exciting range of events taking place across the length and breadth of the county.

“Perhaps I should have ran for the county council before when I was a bit younger, but I have enjoyed my four and a half years so far and I’m looking forward to seeing out the last few months.” With the official news breaking this week that Fine Gael party whip Paddy McGuinness would not be running for re-election, it brings to an end the public life for a second time of the popular County Monaghan native. McGuinness, who had stepped away from public life before after a number of terms on Castlebar Town Council, was tempted back into public life when Enda Kenny came calling before the last local elections. “I had come in to do a job last time around and I was very tempted to stay on, but I had made a decision before that I would be doing one term and I had to stick with it.” The job as McGuinness saw it was to help the party grow and bring them all together as one for the term of the council which, for the most part, he has done very successfully.

Next Monday’s Mayo County Council budget meeting is sure to see a vivacious debate on the issue of rate increases for business in 2009. County Manager Des Mahon informed the monthly meeting of the authority that the council would be seeking a two per cent increase in the rate for 2009. The news was not greeted well by the majority of the members present, Ballinrobe-based Fine Gael Cllr Patsy O’Brien had a motion on the agenda calling on the council not to increase either the water charges or the rate for 2009. Cllr O’Brien’s proposal received support from both sides of the house. The councillor said: “In this current climate, there should be no increase, because the fact is that many small business in the county which have been the backbone of the rural economy for many years are only barely surviving at the minute.” He went on to put a proposal to the council as to how the rate should be struck for each business on a case by case basis. “I think it would be much fairer to calculate the rate as a percentage of the overall turnover of a business for a year, rather than the flat rate we have at the minute.”

At the adjourned Mayo County Council meeting last Friday a rate of a zero per cent increase was negotiated by elected members and council officials during the four and a half hour meeting — the result of which leaves the current commercial rate at €70.16, making 2009 “a year of standstill”, according to county manager Des Mahon.

Fine Gael Councillor Paddy McGuinness took some time at the monthly meeting of the Castlebar Electoral Area meeting to clarify his position in relation to Traveller accommodation in private camp sites. Cllr McGuinness told the meeting, “At a meeting here previously, I spoke about the transient sites for Travellers. I put forward a number of ideas on this issue, one of these I suggest to be looked into is that private camp sites may be opened up to the Travelling community who stay for short periods of time during the summer in and around the Knock festival and Reek Sunday. I wasn’t calling on these camp sites to be opened up, it was only one suggestion of a number that I made that day, which was synopsised in the press and some people took up as me calling for these sites to be opened up.”

For the second time in a week, the controversial new development levy scheme for all new developments in relation to water and sewerage contributions was passed by a local authority in the county, but only after a number of councillors expressed their opposition to the decision. Last week Ballina Town Council passed a reduced rate levey of €3,500 per housing unit while the council was looking for a €4,500 levey. The levey passed by the county county council according to the managers report on the scheme break down the costs so that for large schemes, the amount of the council’s contribution to the total cost of the scheme will be divided by the number of new houses to be served. While for small scheme’s it will be, the amount of the council’s contribution to the total cost divided by the number of new houses to be served, averaged over five recent small schemes developed by the council.

A proposal put forward by Fine Gael Councillor Paddy McGuinness that the council publish each January the allowances and expenses paid to elected members during the previous year was passed at the monthly county council meeting this week.