Mayo councillors flooded with emails by campaign group

COUNCILLORS in Mayo have been flooded with emails from a campaign group.

They have asked about what can be done to manage such an influx, with other correspondence getting lost in their inbox.

The matter was raised at the monthly meeting of the local authority, with the campaign group not identified.

Councillor Michael Loftus accepted that people may have strong feelings about an issue, but the exact same email and wording over again was a waste of time.

Councillor Peter Flynn also received the cut and paste emails, with no names or addresses, over the last number of weeks, and he spent one day answering over 100 emails and phone calls.

Some people he took calls from weren't even from Mayo, he added.

Compounding matters was the fact that an important email may be in the middle of them and get missed, Councillor Michael Kilcoyne highlighted.

The council's system is set up to target spam but these got through as they weren't marketing emails, and they also didn't want to be accused of censorship, members were told. And they can have an email address blacklisted.

Councillor Kilcoyne wondered how senators emails, which they want to receive, are going to spam.

Councillor Gerry Murray said where a campaign group are passionate about a matter one email with all the signatories and addresses, so they know who the constituents are, was sufficient.

He had been inundated too and didn't respond to any of the emails he received as he didn't have time.

*Published under the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.