Councillors frustrated as officials fail to attend meeting on school route safety report
Councillors in the Westport and Belmullet Municipal District have said they are “disgusted” that no representative from Mayo County Council’s Active Travel Team attended their monthly meeting to provide an update on the Safe Routes to School (SRTS) scheme.
The members were due to receive a progress briefing at their March monthly meeting and were given a nine‑page document outlining the current status of the SRTS programme within their municipal area.
However, no representative from the Active Travel Team attended the meeting to discuss the report, leaving councillors feeling frustrated that no one was available to answer questions or address concerns.
Cllr Brendan Mulroy highlighted that the issue concerned the safety of children travelling to school and noted that all elected members and council officials were present at the meeting.
“For something as serious as safe school routes, to not send a representative into the room, not to even be online - that is two fingers to the west Mayo municipal area,” he said.
“This is totally disrespectful. It is disrespectful to every child in the area,” he added. “I’m actually disgusted.”
He accepted there “could be a good reason” for the no‑show, yet stressed that councillors attend meetings to ask questions, gather information for constituents and ensure accountability.
“There is no accountability here. There is no one here to answer any questions,” he said. “Local government is going down the swanny.”
Cllr Mulroy stressed that his criticism was not directed at anyone present in the meeting, but said he thought that “the school kids in the programme in this area would mean a lot more to a lot more people.”
Cathaoirleach of the municipal district, Cllr Peter Flynn, also expressed disappointment that no representative attended in person or joined via a Teams call.
“It would’ve been easy for someone to log on and give us an update,” he said, adding that councillors were given a report, but were given no opportunity to ask questions in relation to it.
“We all have things to do and places to be, but it wouldn’t take much to dial in for 10 or 15 minutes to give an update,” he said.
Cllr Flynn also criticised the lack of dates or timelines in the report and called for this to be addressed.
“The report there is lovely, but it doesn’t give a single date,” he said, asking that specific timelines be provided rather than general phases of development.
Cllr John O’Malley said elected members should be able to question officials directly and raised concerns about children travelling to school along the Newport Road.
He described the situation as “absolutely diabolical” and told the meeting there had been an accident along the road just last week.
“There’s a lot of accidents there that you don’t hear about,” he said, warning that schoolchildren are “putting their lives in danger every day” crossing the road.
Cllr Carey said that many schools across the Erris region have applied for the programme and are looking for updates on its progress.
He stressed the importance of ensuring that children can walk and cycle to school using safe, designated routes to support their health and wellbeing.
“Especially with the way that things are gone now with diesel being so expensive. Now more than ever I think [this programme] should be looked at, and even [look at] the funding for these schemes to be increased,” he added.
Councillors agreed to put the item back on the agenda for their April meeting, insisting they want to speak directly with a member of the Active Travel Team.
Cllr Flynn noted that a new Director of Services with responsibility for Active Travel, David Mellett, has been appointed and requested that he address councillors next month, either in person or online.
Head of the Municipal District, Seamus Ó Mongáin, said the members’ disappointment would be relayed to the Active Travel Team and that a representative would be invited to attend the April meeting.
This article has been funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.