Search Results for 'Gerry Murray'

With the Local Elections only a couple of weeks away the candidates in each area are busy on the doorsteps putting themselves in front of the people again. With the redrawing of election boundaries causing consternation in a number of areas with areas swapping from one to another and Ballinrobe being extinguished as an electoral area in its own right, the Swinford area was one of the least affected with the transfer of Aghamore into its area from the newly expanded Claremorris area.

The prospect of Sinn Féin holding the balance of power in Mayo County Council after this June’s local election has seen the party been approached by both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil to do a deal with them according to sitting Cllr Gerry Murray. Yesterday Sinn Féin launched their four candidates for the county council elections where the party hope to boost their numbers from their current solitary seat held by Cllr Murray, with Castlebar Town Cllr Therese Ruane running in the Castlebar area, Westport Town Councillor Dave Keating in the Westport area and Rose Conway Walsh who lost out on getting a seat in the last elections narrowly running again in the Belmullet area. The launch was also attend by party leader Gerry Adams and EU Election candidate Padraig MacLochlainn.

An 18-year-old Fás student, who pleaded guilty to a Section Two assault on a man outside Top Nosh, was before Castlebar District Court on Wednesday.

The Belmullet area saw the largest influx of new voters into the area following the redrawing of the boundaries last year. An extra 2,249 people were planted into the area from both the east and south of the old constituency. The decision to move Newport east from the Westport electoral area into Belmullet and its population of 1,021 was enough to see sitting Newport based Fianna Fáil councilor Frank Chambers decide not to run again, after seeing his home base split between two different electoral areas. While to the east of the old constituency, Ballycastle, Bunaveela, Kilfian west and Lacken north have been added from the old Ballina area.

There was high drama in Castlebar as night was turning into day when the fourth count of the Swinford area pulled Joe Mellett, the Cathaoirleach of the last term of the previous council, back from the death. From early in the afternoon when the first tallies were done it was looking like Mellett was going to lose out to Fianna Fáil's first time candidate Michael Smyth.

Before Cllr Joe Mellett had even handed over the Cathaoirleach’s chain to incoming Cathaoirleach for the next 12 months, Cllr John Cribben, independent Castlebar based Cllr Frank Durcan fired his first warning shot across the bows of the new council. Cllr Durcan told the meeting, “In the interests of transparency and accountability, I would call that the salaries of the Cathaoirleach, the leas Cathaoirleach and all the committee chairpersons be given to the general public”. Cllr Durcan’s call was seconded by fellow independent Cllr Gerry Ginty from Ballina.

The four elected members of the Swinford electoral area adopted a report on the €2 million upgrade works for the Parkview Estate in Charlestown at the committee’s first bi-monthly meeting of the new council this week. The Swinford area was the only area in the county to return the same outgoing councillors after last month’s Local Elections.

County manager Des Mahon this week urged the elected members of the Mayo County Council to sell the positives of the county rather than the negatives. Mr Mahon was speaking to the members on foot of a motion by Fine Gael’s Michelle Mulherin where she called for the major industries in Mayo to be afforded the opportunity to outline the problems that are affecting their growth due to inadequate infrastructure in Mayo.

The elected members of Mayo County Council paid glowing tributes to departing county manager Des Mahon at his final meeting before he retired from his position. The Roscommon native who has held the position since July 1990 was given a standing ovation by those in the chamber when he spoke at the end of the meeting last Monday.

Figures released by Mayo County Council under the Freedom of Information Act have revealed that Mayo county councillors were paid out €836,212 from January to the end of June 2009, all relating to the six months pre-election. Independent Castlebar Councillor Frank Durcan who sought this information said that these figures are “immoral in the times that are in it”.