Reform Local Government

by Mayo? Fri Oct 19, 2007 20:05

out of interest, Why Mayo?

by Cllr Keith Martin Fri Oct 19, 2007 20:18

Well for one thing if we had a directly elected county mayor in Mayo with executive powers would the Shell fiasco have happened?

the Mayo reference is just a local thing. Everyone should be lobbying for empowered local government.

by Mayo? Fri Oct 19, 2007 21:07

Cllr K Martin I assum you think i am Shell 2 C from your reply, when I asked Why Mayo. I live in Mayo thats it. I am a bit confused as I thought the councellors had powers, doing all the planning and that type of thing. If you don't have powers then what is the purpose of you position? What difference does a mayor make? . What then happens to The Managers in the Council then? Like really who is boss? Does the Mayor then get extra money/ ? What political party are you with? These are the questions I would like you to assist me with.
You might oblige & regards

by Labour Party Cynic Fri Oct 19, 2007 21:32

That's the message Councillor Martin should be putting out, that's the reason he was elected, to get local taxation off the backs of the workers and the welfare classes.

I see his proposals as being geared to set up yet another salaried
tier of bureaucratic tin-pot cabinets all over the country which will cost us poor ould fellas and oul wans even more in local taxation .

Five euros now in Kilkenny for a bag for the rubbish - a working class family has to buy six, seven or eight bags, 30 to 40 euros a week, enough to feed one of the children.

The Labour Party should get back to what it is founded for, otherwise let it continue to die a slow miserable death.

I don't know Councillor Martin, so this is not against him personally, it's just that the Irish People are thinking that Labour has outlived its time.

by Mayo? Fri Oct 19, 2007 21:51

Helo Cynic,
Well that is my point, rubbish bags in mayo are €5 also. The business the dump does is chocker block on a Saturday, traffic jams almost .
Well see what (forget his name now) with his reply. He might be working on somethig right now The Mayor's salary I'd be very interested to know and iHow much of a pension.? well watch this space !!!

by Up Up & away Fri Oct 19, 2007 23:53

Thank U for replying .
Mayors Salary How Much & Pension How much?
Does this men my food or chewing gum or fags are going to go up for your comfort?

by Mayo Abu Sat Oct 20, 2007 20:17

Councilor Martin states “Well for one thing if we had a directly elected county mayor in Mayo with executive powers would the Shell fiasco have happened?”

I say Yes, it probably would, because we would have councillors like Keith Martin who has consistently refused to support or join in the demonstrations organised by the local community in Rossport.

He has a neck!

by Cllr Keith Martin Sun Oct 21, 2007 18:36

Here is my four step solution to the Rossport issue.

1 Nationalise the Gas.
2 Pay Shell off (we're rich so lets pay).
3 Refine the Gas Offshore using a contracted company.
4 Bring the Gas ashore and sell it to the people of Ireland via Bord Gais.

The costs of paying off Shell and hiring a contracted company to bring the Gas safely ashore will be meet by the future profits from the Gas.
Additional profits should go into the bank to save for a national rainy day. Norway uses this system and has €22,000 saved for every man, woman and child directly from its profits from North Sea oil. It also plows a lot of the money in public services such as the health system.

This is a democratic system whereby by national Gas resources are owned by the people, run for the benefit of the people and for the use of the people. It is a win-win situation except for the Gas companies who would exploit our natural resources at the cheapest price.

by Imp Sun Oct 21, 2007 18:56

This is crap Keith Martin, If it were that easy then why have the Party which Labour was going to
bed with (FG) who have a deputy in the Mayo area (Enda Kenny) ignoring the issue of Rossport?
why did Enda Kenny's brother suppress votes on the issue of Support?
Why did the Labour Party do what they always do and send individuals to support and
monitor but did not have the bravery coming to an election to rock the stupid FG boat?

Your response is simplistic.

And while I am at it:-

Have you dealt with local issues at all in the Town of Westport-
1. CCTV increase.
2. The siting of a five star hotel at the base of Croagh Patrick.
3. The railway walk.
4.The spring beneath the railway walk (with the commerorative Plaque) is stuffed with
detritus and rubbish.
5. John Gormley's Local Government Bill is an excuse to say that the Greens did something
whilst Power sharing, any shred of support he had in eco and anti-war is gone and
there will be a lot of movement to alternative parties by his pissed off constituents
especially those in the Poolbeg area where a big incinerator will be built without a whisper
from his office.

Labour had not the independence to take sides with the nurses and openly took on
right wing issues, such as universal health insurances in the run up to the election
they paid for that by losing their constituency. As usual the people attracted to politics
tend to be those who should not be trusted with power- boring twaddle.

by Charles B. - Decadent Action Sun Oct 21, 2007 19:56

I think what the original poster is trying to do is very interesting. While many dissenters would have you believe that democracy as we know it is nothing but an inelegant front for The Establishment to tie the population into a system of society that favours the wealthy and keeps the masses quiet by allowing them to think that we have some input into how the system works, the OP is intimating that some if not all of the current local difficulties in our little country could be solved and indeed avoided altogether by ensuring that democracy was working at the lowest, grassrootiest level.
This is indeed a fine idea, and could be interpreted as being a leaning towards direct democracy, imagine from a party, i.e. labour of Noughties Ireland, or some in the party having such leanings!!
In theory, yes a fantastic idea, where the local people make the decisions that affect them, it seems to make sense alright.
However, what Cllr. Martin fails to understand that is that this would need to happen after a complete dismantling of the current structures occurs. If a local mayor with the powers suggested was to be plucked from the ranks of our current public representatives, we would surely end up worse than we already are. Imagine the backhanders there would be then, with no threat of tribunal, or only self investigation.
As for the Labour Party Cynic, I personally think that your suggestion to Dump the Bin Tax is short sighted and doesn't take into consideration the current difficulties related to the production of, and subsequent disposal of waste in this fine uber capitalist country of ours. You plead that the unfair tax be lifted from the shoulders of the working and welfare taxes, that you fill 7 or 8 bags with waste each week and that this is enough to feed one of the children. How many children do you have? It must also be 7 or 8, and each must produce their own waste. Have you heard of recycling, trying to reduce the amount of waste that you send to landfill each week? Is most of the waste fast food packaging, eaten sitting in front of the box watching Sky (you have to have it but that ain't a tax is it? I suppose the kids or the other half ain't the Government, so it is just something like food or water or shelter, a necessity), or tapping away on the auld internet like (another necessity?).
Maybe if you got rid of the Broad band, you mightn't find it such a struggle to put food on the table for the kids who eat 30-40€ worth of food a week!
Another poster relates to how a spring is filled with rubbish, and as far as I can see thats because either: A) BIns bags are too expensive at a fiver a pop (they're more expensive where I live), and the only option is to chuck the bags over a ditch or onto the side of the road for the local authority to clean up (funded by our very own taxes) or B: because one idealistically opposed to paying anything but the taxes already taken out of your pay packet and illegally dump you rubbish as a statement of you discontent.
But eh hmmm, excuse my bitchy rant, what I think is that although tis quite an interesting topic of debate, it certainly wouldn't work any better than the system already in place, because it would have the same old fogies and electioneers running the show,only with more power, scary.
If you want to improve the way local authorities are perceived, and indeed how they work, never mind about trying to change the system, but use whats there already properly and effectively, by incorporating the local population into all projects even a little more, and by ensuring that all Cllrs. actually carry out their jobs properly, instead of doing favours for the boys, and speaking on their mobile phones really loudly all the time in Council meetings, their minds aren't usually in it as far as I could see the last time I was present at one.

by Cllr Keith Martin Sun Oct 21, 2007 22:44

1. neither I nor the Labour party are not responsible for Enda Kenny or his actions.

2. If you knew anything about the Railway Line walk you would know that I was involved in the Stop the Road campaign in an effort to preserve it.

3. as regards CCTV in Westport if you knew anything about it you would know my concerns on the issue but I will paste them here.

Westport CCTV fait accompli?

I was surprised to see an article in the Mayo News recently about installing a CCTV system in the town, Very surprised in fact because this was the first I was told about any such move.

I think this is an insult to my position as a councillor and an attempt to present CCTV as a fait accompli. I think CCTV is over hyped as a solution to crime in particular to anti social crimes and I don't think articles should be appearing in the paper without the council having debated the issue first.

Here is a copy of the letter I have sent to the Mayo News. I

Dear Madam,

I am writing to you in relation to an article, which appeared in your paper (Mayo News, August 15,Westport organisations to look for 2008 funding for CCTV ) announcing the intention of the certain bodies in the town to apply for a CCTV system.

I would like to point out, as an elected representative for the town that I have not been consulted at any stage about such a scheme and can confirm also that the issue of CCTV has not been discussed or debated at any stage by Westport Town Council since I was elected.

I think the issue should be debated properly in the council chamber before the issue proceeds any further.

Also some important issues to be remembered in relation to CCTV are

· The average citizen in the UK is caught on CCTV cameras 300 times a day.

· A report by the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders (Nacro) which was based on Home Office research, revealed that of 24 studies carried out in city centres, only 13 showed crime had fallen since CCTV cameras were installed.

· The Scottish Centre for Criminology concluded in 1999 that the powers of the cameras had been "over-hyped as a "magic bullet cure".

· In 2005 the UK’s Home Office Report on CCTV (Home Office Research Study 292) found that “increased street-lighting was significantly more effective than CCTV in cutting crime, as well as being considerably cheaper in both capital and income terms.”

I have already asked Westport Town Council officials to install extra lighting at trouble spots such as the Clock and more recently Church Lane to examine its effectiveness as a deterrent.

I really believe that there is no deterrent to crime better than the Guard on the street. The ridiculous situation is that we actually have less Gardai now in Mayo than we did ten years ago. There has been a drop of two Gardaí in Mayo since 1997 despite a massive increase in population in Mayo. 257 Gardaí were employed in the county in 1997, while 255 are currently on duty in Mayo.

The Government have never delivered on its 2002 promise of 2,000 extra Gardai and are instead trying to fob us off with ineffective measures such as CCTV schemes when what we need are Gardai on the streets of Westport tackling the thugs who are ruining the quality of life in our town.

by Cllr Keith Martin Sun Oct 21, 2007 22:49

The whole point of directly elected Mayors is that anyone would be entitled to run for the office and that because there was one person in charge the system would be transparent and open.

Mayors work in other countries are you suggesting that the Irish are too corrupt to govern ourselves at local level or even national level? Should we return to the United Kingdom for government?

Young politicans are tired of having the rubbish of the tribunals thrown up into every debate as if it was a valid debating point. I was in school when that was going on. no-one in my party was invovled in it so what's your point.

Please debate the issues or don't bother posting on my posts. Oh and please bother to do your homework before mouthing off to me on issues about which you obviously don't know about.

All my policies and press releases are on-line at my website www.councillorkeithmartin.blogspot.com

Cheers!
Keith

by Cllr Keith Martin Sun Oct 21, 2007 23:01

here for your research click this link on the Railway Line Walk

http://www.indymedia.ie/article/76050

and this one

http://ie.indymedia.org/article/75933

or this one

http://ie.indymedia.org/article/76207

Please, please do your homework before having a go in future. you look silly and you waste everyone's time.

Good Lad!

Keith

by Nice Treaty Sun Oct 21, 2007 23:53

Cllr. Keith Martin
Q.1 Nice Teaty coming up which way will you be asking us to vote Yes or No thats assuming B. Lenihan cannot waive this to have it automatically approved?
Q.B . Do you agree with Brian Lenihan on his doing this?
Appreciate your contribution on this subject as our future is at stake here.
Many thanks

by Cllr Keith Martin Mon Oct 22, 2007 01:04

I will be voting No on the Treaty.

I think the EU has been good for Ireland but I am not a Federalist and I think that Europe has enough power as it it. It is not a proper democratic body and not directly accountable to the people.

The government cannot waive our right to a referendum. It is unconstitutional.

by Interested Mon Oct 22, 2007 02:01

Cllr Martin your proposals are very much in keeping with what the the people in Erris want to see happening. Why then have you not joined in any of the protests at Bellanaboy?

There's a gathering at the main gate every morning, it's not hard to find, and there'll be a big demonstration on November 9th. Maybe we'll see you there. The internet is all very well, but your physical presence at a protest would raise your visibility on this issue.