‘We need to be more accessible to the public’, says Longford councillor

With Longford MD being the biggest Municipal District in the county, it's important that councillors get out and about and hold monthly meetings in different parts of the area.

That's according to Fianna Fáil's Cllr Martin Monaghan who submitted a notice of motion for last week's meeting proposing that a meeting be held once quarterly in the Ralph Room, Newtownforbes.

“I just feel that it would be nice for the council to go out and show people in the rural areas the workings of our council. I think we should get out of here and go out into the country areas and meet people,” said Cllr Monaghan, addressing his council colleagues last Wednesday afternoon.

Currently, Longford MD meetings are held in the Council Chamber, Town Hall on the Market Square. But Cllr Monaghan feels it would be beneficial to meet in various parts of the municipal area, such as Clondra or Newtownforbes, to give constituents in those areas a chance to see the workings of their council.

“I think it would just make the local government more accessible to the people,” he said.

“I just think it would be great going forward to have an open door policy for community groups to come in and give us the representations that they want.”

His proposal, though, was respectfully shot down by Fine Gael's Cllr Peggy Nolan who, after acknowledging that the motion was proposed “in good spirit”, insisted that the members of Longford MD are not “councillors on tour” and should continue to make use of the council chamber.

“When they were redoing these offices up, they decided that they were going to do away with this chamber and revert it back to office space,” she said.

“At the time I said - and I meant it - that over my dead body will this room be touched. This is the seat of local democracy in the area that we’re serving. I fought to retain this seat. I don’t see the benefit of going to Newtownforbes, Clondra, Stonepark or any other area.”

But there is a benefit to the public gallery, she added, agreeing with Cllr Monaghan that the public should be able to see how the council works and “are welcome with open arms” to make use of that public gallery.

“But we fought so hard to retain this building; this meeting room; this municipal chamber. It was one of the few fights that we won that particular year. And I would ask that we don't take our meetings out of this chamber.”

In response, Cllr Monaghan pointed out that his motion had nothing to do with the chamber itself and was, instead, a way to get out and meet with constituents outside of Longford town itself.

Fine Gael councillor John Browne agreed with Cllr Nolan that it was “not practical” to have meetings elsewhere, while Cllr Gerry Warnock (Ind) also agreed that meetings should remain in the Council Chamber, which the former town council fought hard to keep a number of years ago.

In fact, Cllr Seamus Butler (FF) recalled with amusement, Cllr Nolan had threatened to chain herself to the door and even insisted she'd be there in chains on Christmas day if necessary, with her Christmas dinner brought to her, so passionate was she about keeping the chamber.

Cllr Joe Flaherty (FF), however, was in agreement with Cllr Monaghan, stating that, overwhelmingly, the view coming back from many areas outside of the town itself was that there is “a sense of neglect”.

“They do feel that our focus is on the town but there is a large and significantly increased peripheral area and we need to actively look after those constituents,” said Cllr Flaherty.

The chamber was well and truly divided on the issue, even after Cathaoirleach of Longford MD Cllr Seamus Butler suggested that Cllr Monaghan alter his motion to one meeting per year in a different location, rather than once quarterly.

“I’ll alter it to once a year, but I would prefer that we could get the people in to us,” said Cllr Monaghan, standing strong on the public involvement side of his proposal.

“It’s up to us to get the public to come in to us and I think it will be successful. It’s something that people will want to see. It would be a local government working with local people.”

Cllr Nolan, however, was still opposed to moving meetings from the council chamber and put down a counter proposal.

“We are not councillors on tour. We’re councillors that come in here to do our work. The people are welcome to come in and if they want to call a public meeting in their own areas any time of year, we will make time to go out and sit down and answer questions. But I would propose that we hold firm to what we have here,” she said.

With two proposals before the chamber, councillors were obliged to vote.

Fianna Fáil Cllrs Joe Flaherty, Martin Monaghan and Seamus Butler were all in favour of Cllr Monaghan's ammended proposal to hold one meeting per year in a different part of the Municipal District.

However, Independent Cllr Gerry Warnock and Fine Gael Cllrs Gerry Hagan, Peggy Nolan and John Browne were the majority and voted in favour of Cllr Nolan's proposal to remain in the Council Chamber.