*Cllr Ian Lynch.
CLLR IAN LYNCH (IND) has been elected as the Cathaoirleach of the West Clare Municipal District for the final year of the current Council term.
It is the second time the Kilrush man will serve in the role, his previous stint was also approaching an election year after he was elected in June 2018 in advance of the 2019 local elections.
First elected to Clare County Council in 2014, Lynch received the unanimous backing of his colleagues at the AGM of the West Clare MD held in Áras Contae an Chláir on Thursday afternoon. He succeeds Cllr Shane Talty (FF) with Cllr Joe Killeen (FF) taking over from Lynch as Leas Cathaoirleach.
Prior to his election to the Council, Lynch spent five years as a Kilrush Town Councillor prior to the scrapping of the Town Councils, initially elected as a Fine Gael representative. He was Mayor of Kilrush in 2013. He also contested the 2016 General Election.
Addressing the AGM, Cllr Lynch admitted, “I wasn’t going to say a few words but I was advised by someone this morning to say a few things and make the most of it. It has been a really great team, we’ve worked well together and strategically we’ve tried to have this approach in how we spend money and move projects forward”.
Reflecting back on this term in the Council, he said health and housing stood out as the initial focus “but then COVID was very turbulent and brought a lot of change into how we do things”.
He added, “We’re heading into the final year of this term, we’ve 12 months to go, remind everyone not to get too carried away with the electioneering, a lot of ye have your connections”.
This final year will be “challenging”, Lynch predicted. “We are struggling to get money for roads, the local, country roads and housing estates are not getting the money, we made a decision to increase the local property tax by 15% on condition that services wouldn’t drop but this year we’re seeing grass is not being cut, our next budget coming up to Christmas will be very important, we have to make sure we get our fair share”.
Further development of the plan for West Clare as devised by councillors and local authority staff must get a renewed focus over the coming twelve months, Cllr Lynch maintained.
An improvement is required within communications of the Council, he added. “We really have to work on how we communicate things internally and externally, to councillors and to the public, I was disappointed with the consultation with the local community development plan, huge effort gone in but we didn’t tell the people”. Senior executive officers in the West Clare MD need to be kept up to speed on all matters within the Council’s headquarters, he insisted. “The position given to John (O’Malley) is the highest paid in West Clare, if headquarters are not communicating effectively with John then it breaks down”.
In his native Kilrush, Cllr Lynch was hopeful Frances Street’s potential would be acted on. “We’ve the second widest street in Ireland, O’Connell St is the widest, it’s the heart of the town and should be a living environment, we had an opportunity with town centre first but it is needed to bring all the projects come together and work”.
Leas Cathaoirleach, Cllr Killeen pointed to the need to improve roads within the Municipal District which accounts for half of the county’s road network. “We met Minister Jack Chambers and he said he would look into the budget, we need the money to cover of those private roads and get the work done, the list is so long, we’ve such a huge proportion of roads in the county”.
Director of Services for the West Clare MD, Leonard Cleary told the Cathaoirleach and Leas Cathaoirleach that the Council’s team would work fully with them in a partnership. “We are four years into the plan, we will take stock and have a look within the final twelve months what we can move on, the majority of projects have moved on significantly but there are some pinch points we would also like to work on”.
Speaking at the meeting, Cllr Gabriel Keating (FG) commented, “You can have all the projects you like but you need the people in the design office to push them because that is where it all starts, we seem to be down four people in the design office, there has been a lot of movements of staff, we don’t have input as to who does what but we can make a request”.
A first request was issued to Cllr Lynch by Cllr Talty. “In two weeks’ time Ian will have first Corporate Policy Group meeting, I raised it at the last two meetings the absence of a SEO for North Clare, it is not tolerable that we are left without such a senior position”.
Problems associated with planning were flagged by Cllr PJ Kelly (FF). “The message is quite clear that the refusal kit is to be updated, the West Clare MD is in a very difficult position as far as planning is concerned, two words have been brought in now ‘visually sensitive’, we have the Shannon first and the Atlantic second, if this prevails all the area will be sterilised, we will have to meet a number of times during the year and call in Oireachtas members to say we want this done”. He added, “The emphasis today is not thou shalt but thou shall not, I would like us to put a heavier emphasis on planning”.
Cllr Cillian Murphy (FF) who nominated Cllr Lynch recalled that he had been a “great support to me when I was Chair, if there is anything you need from this sit of the table you won’t need to ask”. He continued, “we’ve had a great relationship as a team over the past four years, I would like this to continue despite the warfare that might happen when fighting to retain seats”.
