'Promised' Crossmolina fire station is put on the long finger

MAYO Deputy Dara Calleary has expressed his dismay and frustration that a new fire station promised for Crossmolina will not be delivered before 2020 despite funding for the project being announced two weeks prior to last year's general election.

In reply to a parliamentary question placed by Deputy Calleary, the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government Simon Coveney confirmed that the current indicative year for delivery of the project is 2020.

Deputy Calleary said: “To be quite frank I am disgusted with the reply received from the minister. To make a funding announcement two weeks before a general election but to have no intention of delivering on the promise for a further four year stinks of a vote-grabbing exercise and nothing more.

“A new fire station for Crossmolina is a much-needed facility. The fire personnel in the town do an amazing job in difficult circumstances and the existing station is not fit for purpose.

“In the past number of years we have seen at first hand the fantastic assistance that Crossmolina’s Fire Service provides to the community, not least when the town was under water after the River Deel burst its banks.

“I am now calling upon the government representatives in the county to deliver on their promise and deliver a new station to Crossmolina as a matter of urgency”.