MAYO LETTER OF THE WEEK: One Pyrrhic victory?

Dear Sir,

ON Monday, January 15, I went to the Mayo County Council buildings to watch the monthly council meeting. I had booked the afternoon off work and made my way to the council building early to obtain a seat in the public gallery.

I wanted to watch the proceedings as there has been a huge debate all over the county and the country over the arrival of Ukrainian and International Protection asylum seekers into our county and country.

In the run-up to the meeting, there had been demonstrations at Castlemacgarrett House, outside Claremorris, and in Ballinrobe.

I was curious to see how the council meeting would unfold. Predictably, there were a lot of people who wanted to sit in the public gallery.

I was one of the lucky 20 who got to spectate. It was notable that a lot of members of the council didn’t turn up on the day. I will venture an opinion later to suggest as to why they didn’t turn up.

Councillor Michael Kilcoyne proposed to suspend standing orders and this was seconded by Councillor Blackie Gavin. It was clear that the majority of the members of the council wanted to debate the events unfolding within the county.

The meeting was adjourned for 30 minutes. It was my first time at a council meeting and I wasn’t sure of the protocol. I noticed that Councillor Ger Deere was sitting on his own and hadn’t joined the others outside.

I approached him and asked why he wasn’t with the other councilors. He just shrugged his shoulders and told me he didn’t agree with what they were doing. I was a bit perplexed myself and made my way back to my seat.

I could sense I was in the minority of one in the public gallery and I broke the ice with the two men sitting beside me. They looked like good, honest, decent, hardworking taxpayers and I wanted to understand their anger. I wanted to know why they took the afternoon off work and travelled to Castlebar to vent their frustration.

I just said: “Look lads, I’m going to tell you straight – I’m pro-immigration. What is your problem with refugees going into Castlemacgarrett House?”

The nearest told me they weren’t against foreigners but he was against these refugees. “They’re getting too much too soft. I’ve traveled all over the world. I’ve worked with foreigners. I’m married to a foreigner.”

I didn’t know what to say when he told me his wife was not Irish. I put it to him that it seemed kind of crazy to start protesting against refugees if that’s the case. “Is there not a certain contradiction in what you’ve just said?”

He just shook his head and kept repeating the familiar old trope that they’re 'getting too much too soft'. I didn’t feel that logic or reason was going to enter the conversation anytime soon so I decided to distract myself with silence until the councillors returned.

After a while, the councillors did indeed return. It was proposed that Mayo County Council suspend all dealings with the Department of Integration over the settlement of migrants and refugees.

In effect, the councillors didn’t agree with the placement of refugees in the county. They wanted it to stop. They were tired of the central government running roughshod over the plain people of Mayo.

This was what the gallery wanted to hear. At last, the politicians were standing up for the people.

Gradually, the meeting – to my eyes at least – degenerated into high farce. One councillor after another grandstanding.

A representative from the Westport electoral area said that the trickle-down economy of Westport was under threat. Too many refugees. Small businesses are struggling. The gallery lapped it up. Nearly broke into spontaneous applause.

He failed to mention the return to a 13.5% hospitality VAT rate from 9% last year and the huge effect this increase was having on small businesses. That would be cerebral, real politics.

A representative from the Claremorris area spoke. No doubt he was wary of the upcoming council elections in June. Instead of showing leadership, he chose the principled road of populism and casual racism. I felt a knot in my stomach and I just got up and left. At least he’ll be elected next June.

Leaving the building, there were groups of protesters listening to the proceedings in the hall. I’ve reflected on the day many times since. The gardaí should’ve had a presence in the building on the day. There was an atmosphere of intimidation in the auditorium.

Councillor Loftus was the chair of the meeting and is an honorable, decent man, but he should’ve had more assistance. I would contend that a lot of councillors did not show up on the day simply because of the potential for intimidation and abuse from members of the far right. That’s disgraceful.

As I understand it, Councillor Ger Deere got up and spoke in favour of the refugees. He was the only one to do so. He was hectored and jeered by the gallery – par for the course on the day.

The motion was passed without even a vote.

The following Wednesday (January 17), I read in the Irish Independent that Taoiseach Leo Varadkar rejected outright the motion that had just been passed.

He stated: “Mayo County Council is one that would receive very significant grants from central government; from the Department of Transport for roads, for example, from the Department of the Environment for other things. And you can’t say that you’re going to withdraw cooperation from one government department and then look for funding from five others. That’s not a tenable position, I’m afraid.”

Dr. Varadkar also stated that we can’t have an 'a la carte relationship' with central government.

On the Friday of that week (January 19), I walked to Swirl for my morning coffee. I met Councillor Al McDonnell as we waited to be served. I remarked that I didn’t see him at the meeting on Monday. He passed a wry smile and told me that he was unavoidably absent. He had to be present at a function as cathaoirleach of the Castlebar Municipal District in Balla with Minister Calleary on the same day.

We got our coffees. We stood at the corner of the Mall at the tax office. I asked him what would be the repercussions of the motion that had been passed on Monday. He explained in polite, meaningful words that the motion was a Pyrrhic victory, was completely meaningless, and had no real substance.

I pressed him further. He explained that the motion has no real substance as the councillors never had any authority to begin with when it came to housing. It’s an executive function and is decided by civil servants only.

Public representatives have absolutely no say in the matter and have had no say in the matter, so saying that the councillors will refuse to cooperate with the central government is disingenuous as they never have any dealings with them in the first place.

I then asked why would the councillors sanction a motion that was in effect pointless. Optics, he explained. The members of the council are feeling pressure from their constituents. They want to be seen to be doing something, even if it is pointless and futile.

As he spoke, I finally understood what the motive of the majority of the councillors on the day was. There is an election looming. Populism and weak politics are the order of the day. The motion was proposed and passed simply because of fear. Fear that they could lose their seats.

He then explained the logical outcome that because of this motion, Mayo County Council will likely be rapped on the knuckles and receive reduced funding as a consequence.

So, in effect, elected representatives will save their seats but the county will receive less funding to keep them there. We reap what we sow.

His thinking and analysis have proved to be prescient and prophetic. On February 7, it was reported in The Connaught Telegraph that Fine Gael Councillor Donna Sheridan slammed Transport Minister Eamon Ryan’s funding allocation for Active Travel schemes in the Castlebar area as 'farcical'.

Councillor Donna Sheridan said the €468,500 allocation for the district is down from €995,410 in 2023, but that 'was not the worst part of the story'.

I could quote more from the piece but it only took the central government less than two weeks to enact its revenge.

Councillor Sheridan did not protest against the motion passed in the council. She vigorously supported it.

I have recently obtained a copy of the Active Travel Investment Grants. In the draft 2024 allocations, Mayo received a paltry sum of €3,500,000. We have a population of 130,000 people.

That works out at roughly €27 per person in this county. Galway city and county has a population of roughly 277,000 people. They received a total sum of €11,183,000. That works out at €41 per person in our neighboring county.

This funding is crucial for a county like ours whose local economy relies heavily upon tourism. We can use this money to develop greenways, improve the connectivity between towns and villages, and make our county more attractive to tourists. It looks like Galway won this round.

I think it’s fair to say that the negative press from that one council meeting has cost this county a lot of funding already. The worrying thing is, will that continue going forward?

Yours sincerely,

Dr. Richard Martin,

Pavilion Road,

Castlebar, Co. Mayo.