Calls to reinstate old Borough Council

MOVES are afoot to try to bring back the defunct Sligo Borough Council.

Councillor Tom MacSharry successfully moved a motion at this month’s meeting calling on the Council to ask new Minister for Housing, Planning, Community Local Government Eoghan Murphy to reinstate it.

He described the decision by former Minister Phil Hogan to abolish Sligo Borough Council as a “retrograde step” which had “diminished local democracy and disempowered communities.”

Cllr MacSharry said the 2014 Local Government Act which abolished it was now seen more and more across the political divide as a flawed piece of legislation.

“Abolition is not reform,” he told members. “Even the Labour party leader Brendan Howlin who was in government at the time has admitted that it was a mistake,” he said.

He welcomed the fact that the new Junior Minister for Local Government with special responsibility for Local Government Reform John Paul Phelan recently met with Kilkenny councillors who also lost their Borough Council and has promised to revisit the issue.

Cllr MacSharry was supported by Cllr Rosaleen O’Grady, Chris MacManus and Declan Bree.

Cllr Hubert Keaney said he couldn’t support the motion. He pointed to the “dysfunction” of the old Borough Council, which he said held up the Midblock route for 20 years.

“Toilets were bought but never installed. Sligo Borough Council took the 3rd Bridge out of the Development Plan, and fourthly, Sligo Borough Council didn’t sit for a number of months because of various different issues,” he said.

Cllr MacSharry’s motion had to go to a vote in which Cllr Keaney and Cllr Dara Mulvey voted against. Cllrs Joe Queenan and Margaret Gormley abstained but it was easily passed.