Search Results for 'Cllr Michael Kilcoyne'

At the monthly meeting of Castlebar Town Council last week, Fine Gael councillor Noreen Heston raised the issue of why the traffic lights in Newtown were out of order for so long. Cllr Heston told the meeting: “It is an important issue, I know it’s a county council matter, but the lights were left out of order for a very long time and there were a number of accidents there. There should have been a member of the Gardaí or a traffic warden placed at the lights because it was very dangerous.” Cllr Heston said that she had been in contact with the gardaí about the issue and was told that it was a matter of resources that they couldn not post someone there all the time, while the council said it was a similar issue for them.

The ongoing saga over the new tenant purchase scheme for social housing, which sees current tenants of social housing having until the end of next year to buy out their homes or lose their chance of ever owning that home, dominated a large chunk of the November meeting of Mayo County Council.

Fine Gael will pay for McCormack U-turn

Independent councillor Frank Durcan warned the Fine Gael party that they will pay at the next election for becoming “the (John) Gormleys of Mayo”, adding, “Let me not hear ye giving out about Green (party) decisions when ye do the exact same as them”.

Members of staff at Mayo General Hospital were informed on Tuesday last that 150 temporary workers are to lose their jobs from September 1 next. Devastated employees are now set to be forced on to the dole queues while services at the hospital are sure to come under considerable strain.

A letter sent by the proprietor of the Supermacs restaurant in Castlebar to the members of the Castlebar Joint Policing Committee (JPC), was described as being “nearly contemptuous” by Garda Superintendent Willie Keaveney at a meeting of the JPC this week. The committee was discussing the issue of takeaway closing times concerning an agreement that had been reached with the rest of the takeaway operators in the town to close at 2.30am. However, Supermacs was refusing to sign up to the agreement.

The issue of anti-social behaviour was the catalyst for a long debate at a meeting of the Castlebar Joint Policing Committee this week. The meeting was told of a number of incidents of this type of behaviour over the recent past, with one member of the public retelling the harrowing ordeal he is currently suffering at the hands of his neighbours and the lack of interest the landlord of the rented property has shown towards the issue. Castlebar Mayor Cllr Michael Kilcoyne also told the meeting of an incident he was made aware of early in the week. “I got a call from a relative and the carer of an elderly man about an incident at the weekend. The man, who lives on Linenhall Street, was outside at 1.30am last Saturday night on the street and three young fellas urinated on him. The gardaí know about this and are investigating it, but the poor man is traumatised after it and his carer and his relative who rang me are very concerned about him.” Cllr Ger Deere told the meeting, “This was a terrible act to carry out and I hope that those who carried it out were caught on camera on the street to help the gardaí investigate this properly.”

Only one Castlebar takeaway refused to close at the same time as the others in the town following a meeting between members of the Castlebar Joint Policing Committee and the operators of the takeaways.

The Castlebar Joint Policing Committee was told this week that progress was being made between the committee and the operators of two venues in the town which hold teenage discos. The JPC wants the operators of the disco to operate a system like one that is being used in Galway, where only students of the schools in the vicinity of Castlebar will be allowed attend. This is aimed at preventing large numbers of students from outside the surrounds of the town and from outside the county being bussed into the town for these events.

The Castlebar Joint Policing Committee was told this week that the head shops were always one step ahead of legislation, despite public concerns. Castlebar Mayor Cllr Michael Kilcoyne asked town engineer Sean Higgins what the current situation was in relation to proceedings taken by the council on the issue. Mr Higgins informed the meeting that the council was in the process of investigating the planning history of the two head shops in the town, and had sent a warning letter to one shop.