Council voting bloc urged to treat rural areas fairly

A voting bloc of councillors with a majority of seats on Westmeath County Council has been asked not to forget about rural areas.

The coalition, led by Fianna Fáil’s nine councillors and supported by independent Cllr Mick Dollard and Independent Ireland’s Paul Hogan, will control many decisions made in the newly formed council for the next five years.

At the July meeting of the Municipal District of Mullingar Kinnegad on Monday 1 July, Labour’s Cllr Denis Leonard requested that the coalition ensure a balance of representation across the county.

"There are six councillors of the current coalition in this municipal area, five from Fianna Fáil and Cllr Dollard – and on the other side you have myself and two from each of Fine Gael and Sinn Féin," he said.

"That’s six and five, so I would ask in the first instance that the equality of the divide be treated fairly during the term.

"We also need urban, rural balance, as during the last term we had four mayors from Mullingar and just one rural mayor – John Shaw."

Cllr Leonard thinks it could lead to unbalanced development in the district if the pattern continues.

"What ends up happening is that it becomes the Mullingar municipal area, but this is not the Mullingar town council, so we need to be very careful," he said.

"We could easily end up in a situation where all the focus goes to the Mullingar local area plan and Mullingar issues.

"The fact is, more than half of the municipal district’s population, which is around 50,000, live in rural Westmeath and about 23,000 live in Mullingar.

"My biggest concern is we have major issues in rural areas like housing, roads, water, infrastructure, and sustainable development.

"There has also hardly been an affordable private house built in the likes of Castlepollard, Delvin, Kinnegad, Rochfortbridge, Killucan, for the last 10 years."

Cllr Leonard, who topped the poll in the Kinnegad electoral area in last month’s election, hopes for more balanced mayoral appointments during this term.

"I would congratulate Ken Glynn on becoming our new mayor; he has been strong on many rural issues in the past, like wind farms, agriculture and roads," he said.

"But I would also hope that the mayors who come after him would remember the fact that over 50% of the population lives in rural Westmeath in this district.

"Also, 50% of the voters who voted in this election did not vote for the parties who are choosing mayors at the moment."