No motions tabled by 18 councillors

NEITHER of Tuesday night’s town council meetings in Kilkee or Shannon featured a single motion from any of the 18 elected town councillors.
Although the country is still emerging from the coldest winter in 130 years, which resulted in water shortages and poor driving conditions in both towns, none of the town councillors felt it necessary to address any of these concerns via a motion at their monthly meeting.
The Kilkee Town Council meeting was preceded by a Joint Police Committee meeting attended by Kilrush area Garda Superintendent Gerry Wall.
The actual town council meeting featured a debate on Kilkee Tidy Towns, a progress report on the town’s proposed boundary extension and information on councillors’ mobile phone allowance.
Councillors heard they are entitled to seek remuneration of up to 50% on their phone bills. However, this figure is capped at €300. Kilkee town clerk John Corry told members they have been entitled to claim mobile phone allowance expenses since January 2007. Some councillors though were unaware of this.
“Why was it not available to us in 2007? We certainly never got it,” Councillor Lily Marrinan-Sullivan commented.
“You’re not going to know something you weren’t told about,” Councillor Claire Haugh stated, while Councillor PJ Lardener enquired if councillors needed to produce receipts for pay-as-you-go mobile phones.
Yet 18 months after the June 2009 local elections, none of the issues debated at the first Kilkee Town Council meeting of 2011 were as a result of a motion tabled by the elected councillors.
Meanwhile, the Shannon Town Council meeting was over less than half an hour after its 6.30pm start.
Shannon councillors did manage to find the time to agree with a motion from a town council in Kildare, which criticised the reduction of the minimum wage. They failed, however, to cobble together a single motion between them concerning events in Shannon.