SLIGO LEADER PERFORMANCE IS QUESTIONED
The Board of Sligo Leader is being urged to account for their ‘dismal’ performance which as seen them fall to the bottom of the national Leader rankings.
West Sligo Councillor Michael Clarke told the first Council meeting of the new year on Monday that he believed the performance of the board of Sligo Leader had been “dismal at best and incompetent at worst.”
He tabled a motion on the organisation, asking “can this Council and the people of county Sligo continue to have any confidence in this Board?
“I now call for a report from the Board of Leader. I call for the board to take responsibility. This was flagged in 2018. Action is required now. This cannot be ignored any longer in my opinion,” his motion stated.
“It’s ‘Make Sligo Leader Great Again’,” he told the chamber on Monday.
“I believe every organisation taxed with the distribution of public money should be held accountable in every way,” he said.
“Only 17 per cent of the money available to Sligo Leader was allocated. Now we see that because of the performance of Leader, Sligo has missed out on the half a million in grant aid that was awarded to the ten top performing Leader counties,” he said.
Cllr Clarke paid tribute to Sligo Leader in the past and said it was a “fantastic” organisation which did a lot of good around the county, but added that there was “no doubt” that Leader had slipped in the ranking and they should “hold them to account for that.”
“Many people in my area feel they have been walked up a hill and back down again regarding funding applications and the hardship of that - at least we should be asking questions,” he said.
He was supported by Cllr Joe Queenan who pointed out that he served for fifteen years on the Board of Sligo Leader and knew what they had achieved in that time. He said he wished Chris Gonley (Sligo Leader CEO) well and wished him success. Cllr Queenan said there had been however a “lot of frustration within community groups about the amount of paperwork.”
He said it all dated back to “Big Phil Hogan who revamped Leader and made a dog’s dinner of it.” He said he was now on the Board of Sligo County Council’s Local Community Development Committee (LCDC) and felt it was time Sligo Leader was subsumed into that: “There’s too much money being spent on red tape,” he added.
Chief Executive of Sligo County Council Ciarán Hayes agreed to bring the members comments back to Sligo Leader and would request a report from them on the issues raised.
Cllr Paul Taylor added that the staff of Sligo Leader were doing “great work at ground level” and should be complimented for that but the issues they had were with the Board of Sligo Leader.
Cllr Thomas Healy noted that he and Cllr Donal Gilroy had been elected to the Board of Sligo Leader and told members if they had any problems to go to them.