by Alan Jacques
FINE Gael councillor Liam Galvin has vowed to stop attending council meetings if relevant staff are not present to answer his queries.
Speaking at a special meeting in Newcastle West municipal district this Tuesday, local representatives took chagrin that certain council personnel were not present to deal with pressing issues. Cllr Galvin threatened to stop turning up for council meetings if key staff members were not in attendance in future.
“I’m disgraced. This is the bread and butter of our operations and I won’t be attending if engineers are not present. I appreciate that they are busy but they can spare two hours a month,” Cllr Galvin fumed.
Cllr John Sheahan (FG) asked the council executive what there policy is regarding staff attending meetings.
“It’s time to put to bed once and for all this issue about staff being absent from meetings. We need local engineers here to deal with local queries. If Mrs Murphy has a pothole that needs fixing then we need the person who deals with fixing Mrs Murphy’s pothole present,” he said.
Cllr Jerome Scanlan (FG) opined that if key personnel were not present at meeting that “there may as well not be a council”. He also claimed that the local authority has become “too fragmented” since the merger of city and county councils.
Fianna Fail councillor agreed with Cllr Scanlan. He claimed that councillors now have to deal with customer service staff at the council, where as in the past they had direct access to key personnel in different departments.
Sinn Fein councillor Seamus Browne told the council executive that he appreciated the impact of employment embargoes on overstretched staff.
“They have a difficult job, but by missing meetings everybody’s life is being made more difficult,” said Cllr Browne.
It was agreed that key council personnel would attend relevant council meetings where possible in the future to deal with issues of direct relevance to them.
