Search Results for 'Al McDonnell'

The Sacred Heart Hospital in Castlebar will be brought up to HIQA standards in time for the 2015 deadline, following the announcement on Wednesday that €11 million was being sanctioned for the necessary refurbishment works by the HSE. An Taoiseach Enda Kenny has welcomed the announcement that the hospital has now been included in the HSE's Capital Programme.

The Mayor of Castlebar, Cllr Brendan Henaghan, has said he will “eat his hat” if the Sacred Heart Hospital is not there in five years time.

Organisers of the community rally to save the Sacred Heart Hospital in Castlebar from closure have called for a huge turnout for the evening of Monday next, May 27. The rally has been called to highlight the danger of the hospital closing on June 30, 2015, unless remedial works, which will take two years to complete, are not started immediately.

As has now become tradition, the second last full meeting chaired by the outgoing Cathaoirleach of Mayo County Council packs up from the chamber in Áras an Chontae in Castlebar and hits the road to the home town or village of the outgoing Cathaoirleach. On Monday this week, the community centre in Ballyglass was the setting for the May meeting of the council, the home village of Cathaoirleach Cllr Cyril Burke.

The news that consultants will have to be employed to carry out a strategic study of Knock airport and its future direction, which will not be ready until September, was greeted with dismay from the opposition benches at the May meeting of Mayo County Council. County manager Peter Hynes, who is also a board member of the airport, gave the elected members an update on the work of the strategic review body of the airport which has met twice in the recent past to plan its future. Mr Hynes told the meeting, “It’s best to have the right plan in place, not the quickest plan”. He said that consultants were close to being employed to carry out the survey, which will have to be part funded by the council along with the other interested bodies involved with the airport.

With Ireland about to enter a decade long period of commemoration of the historic events that shaped the nation, Mayo County Council has put together a committee to come up with a definite plan to commemorate the centenary of these historic events.

The long term future of Knock Airport was pushed to the front of political debate once again this week, even causing the suspension of standing orders at the annual budget meeting of Mayo County Council so it could be discussed before the €120 million budget was even considered, and later in the week necessitated a Government Minister’s department to issue a denial that he advised an airline to fly into Shannon rather than Knock.

The members of Mayo County Council adjourned the October meeting of the council as a mark of respect to the late PJ Morley. Fianna Fáil councillor Al McDonnell proposed the adjournment and it was seconded by Fine Gael councillor John Cribben.

Social networking sites can be a “hostile environment” where bullying is rife, according to the chairman of Dáil na nÓg in Mayo.

Councillor Al McDonnell, the chairperson of the Cultural, Heritage and Corporate Affairs Strategic Policy Committee of Mayo County Council, expressed his disappointment in the response that his committee had received from a letter that was sent in April. At the April meeting off the committee a resolution was passed where the committee wrote to the Minister for Education Ruairi Quinn to complain about the removal of the processing of first time applications for the higher education grants from the local authority. Cllr McDonnell asked for an update on the issue at the July meeting of the SPC this week. He was informed that the letter was send on April 14 from the council and an acknowledgement was received from the Minister’s office dated April 16, but there has been no communication since.