Mayo councillor in meeting walk-out
AN elected member of Mayo County Council has walked out of the meeting of the authority during a debate on his motion for a review of the integrity of the organisation.
A recent report from Transparency International Ireland ranked Mayo County Council as the third worst county in Ireland in terms of integrity.
Westport Fine Gael Councillor Peter Flynn today formally proposed that all councillors and employees participate in a confidential and independent survey on the topic of integrity in the workplace to take place by the end of March.
He stressed that he wasn't questioning the employees of the council and had total faith in them when it came to integrity.
However, he felt the review is important as integrity is 'the pillar of any organisation.'
The chief executive of Mayo County Council, Peter Hynes, took exception to the motion and said that the council operated to the highest ethical standard.
He advised the cathaoirleach, Councillor Brendan Mulroy, that the motion was a clear effort to interfere in the operations of the local authority.
Castlebar Fine Gael Councillor Donna Sheridan defended Councillor Flynn's motion.
She said that since she was elected to the council last year, she had found it difficult to obtain certain information.
One of the things that 'annoyed her most' was to hear at her last municipal district meeting that Marie Crowley had been moved from the head of the municipal district to another role.
Councillor Mulroy described Councillor Sheridan's remarks as 'highly inappropriate'.
During the exchanges between councillors Mulroy and Sheridan, Councillor Flynn excused himself from the remainder of the meeting.
His motion for the review was defeated when put to a vote.
Ahead of yesterday's meeting, the council issued a report in response to Councillor Flynn's motion.
It stated: "Mayo County Council is highly accountable to the public we serve, to the elected members of the council and to central government.
"We operate to the highest ethical standards and meet all required Statutory obligations; any inference otherwise is completely rejected and is unfair to all the hard working elected members, staff and management of the organisation.
"Council actions, decisions and finances are fully transparent, and council elected members and employees operate with utmost integrity in providing hundreds of services to our public.
"We adhere to all legislative requirements in relation to Ethics, Disclosure and Freedom of Information.
"Transparency International is a non-statutory organisation with a world wide remit.
"Transparency International set approximately thirty indicators via a review of Local Authority Websites.
"Mayo County Council responded to their Draft Report in October 2019 advising them that across a significant number of the 30 indicators, they had incorrectly recorded availability of data for Mayo County Council.
"None of the errors identified in the Draft Report were rectified by Transparency International.
"Notwithstanding concerns about how this report was compiled and presented, in a spirit of continuous improvement, we intend to use the constructive suggestions therein to help improve our new Website Mayo.ie which we aim to launch in May 2020. "
The report said Protected Disclosure Policy and Procedures are in place to ensure concerns of wrongdoing can be raised by employees without fear.
"Inaccuracies on the Draft Transparency International Report were pointed out in October and November, 2019.
"These inaccuracies were not commented on or rectified by Transparency International in their final Report.
"They record that the Planning System of the council was not online — it is fully online and searchable; They record that our Procurement Policy/ Tenders Process are not online — our policy and quarterly Procurement Report is fully available online and we publish Tenders online.
"They recorded that council members expenses/payments and Ethics Forms are not available - all Payments are published online and all Declaration Forms are available for inspection.
"They recorded that Protected Disclosures are not published — we advised them we issue our report online every year and that there has never been such a disclosure in Mayo County Council.
" They reported that we do not have procedures in place to investigate Part 15 Local Government Act Contraventions — we outlined that we did and explained this process.
"A phone call took place between Transparency International in October 2019, a follow up email with a questions and answers section was issued in October to explain the process, none of that was included in their report.
"They stated that the annual report was not available online — all reports are online."