Frustration over funds allocated to local district

DIRECTOR of Services Liz Hore announced at a recent Gorey Kilmuckridge Municipal District Council meeting that the district’s budget in the Three Year Capital Programme had increased by over €15million from last year.

“In fairness to the members that brought up issues, they were listened to and they did go back over the investment,” said Liz.

Cllr Anthony Donohue welcomed the funding but was frustrated that out of €235million only €29.5million was allocated to the Gorey District.

“That makes up five projects, one of which is the Gorey District Park is €3.1million. In my calculations, I take that €3.1million out because it was already spent in 2023, 2022 and 2021,” said Cllr Donohue.

In response, Mrs Hore said that she understood Cllr Donohue’s point but she could not take the €3.1million out of the expenditure. “There’s only a small amount, there’s only €65,000 left on it so I have to leave it in there but it will come out next year,” said Mrs Hore.

Cllr Donohue said he doesn’t think the percentage of funding allocated to the Gorey District is adequate in relation to the contribution the district makes.

“Gorey District makes up nearly 17 per cent of the rates collected but from these calculations, we’re only getting back up 10 per cent and I still would like to press the Director to go back again and try and get some more,” said Cllr Donohue.

Cllr Donohue stated that the Market Square project should also be included on the special projects list.

Cllr Joe Sullivan agreed with Cllr Donohue. “What we see there is only notional figures of what we’ll spend going forward. There’s two projects in Gorey both of them about €5 to €6million, Esmonde Street and the Market House. Bottom line, that’s what we’re going to see in maybe the lifetime of the next Council. We’ve seen one project in this Council, with respect to everybody, Gorey Town Park. It turned out a very good job, it probably cost too much, but it’s a good job,” said Cllr Sullivan.

Mrs Hore reminded the councillors of several projects the Council have applied for such as the Riverchapel Community Building and the Kilmuckridge Playground.

They’ve also applied for €750,000 for phase two of the Riverchapel Sports centre and working on the St Waleran’s Sports Complex.

“The members feel that Wexford have been getting a lot more but I would have to say that some of the projects for Wexford, we’ve leveraged grant funding from URDF and some of those projects are actually regional projects, they’re not actually just county projects and they’re certainly not town projects,” said Mrs Hore.