Wexford meeting descends into shouting match amid claims council staff are taking over a year to respond to queries

By Simon Bourke, Wexford People

The ability of Wexford County Council (WCC) staff to respond to emails has been called into question amid claims some queries are taking over a year to be dealt with. In a heated exchange at County Hall, councillors Tom Forde and Leonard Kelly questioned why emails – submitted on behalf of constituents – were taking so long to receive replies.

The conversation began in a measured manner with Cllr Forde asking senior engineer Eilis Furlong about unanswered correspondence.

“I really do feel that the members’ queries are of paramount importance as they are submitted on behalf of the public,” he said at the September meeting of the Wexford Borough District. “I understand you might not have time to respond to them all and you’re under pressure to deliver the roads programme but I’m still getting responses from emails I sent a year ago, those queries are completely redundant now.

"It doesn’t seem to matter if they come through the members’ portal or via email, there’s major delays in all of them. When we submit questions we should be getting answers, we need a functioning system.”

Opting to reply to Cllr Forde himself, chief executive of WCC Eddie Taaffe said it wasn’t always possible to respond to every query in a timely fashion.

“I hear what you’re saying about responses, but we have to cut our cloth to suit in terms of the staff we have, and prioritise workloads in the time we have,” he said. “I absolutely accept there are delays in getting responses back, but what do you want us to do? Do you want us to have perfect record? And not spend time on our roads programme?

"The budget meeting is coming up, if you want to assign more money for staff in the budget you can do that. We do our best, I know you’re not having a go and are only raising the issue but the reality is that sometimes it comes down to either or. Sometimes we have to prioritise doing rather than explaining.”

Disappointed with this explanation, Cllr Forde suggested writing to the Minister for Local Government James Browne TD to request more staff.

“It’s a bad state of affairs when elected members aren’t getting replies,” he continued. “I’m talking about cases where I’m assisting someone on the housing list or someone who needs repairs carried out at their house. This is very important. I talk to councillors who served 20 or 30 years and they wouldn’t have stood for this.”

Defending the council staff, cathaoirleach of the Wexford Borough Cllr Garry Lafffan noted that “99 per cent” of his queries “are responded to within a timely fashion”.

At this juncture Cllr Kelly entered the conversation.

“I raised the issue of installing a new crossing at Kerlogue last week and sent an email about it, it’s a week later now and still nothing. I have other examples too.”

This caused the temperature in the chamber to raise somewhat and for the chief executive to go on the defensive.

“Maybe the safety engineer was dealing with ten other queries that were equally important. Are you saying we’re just sitting back here doing nothing?” he asked.

“When did I say that?” protested Cllr Kelly.

“Maybe people were busy doing other things for other people,” continued Mr Taaffe.

“Well, find more staff,” said Cllr Kelly raising his voice.

“Well, get me more money,” replied Mr Taaffe raising his. “You have to be realistic about the workload of people here, we have spent two years organising a festival that brought 1.4m people to the town. People are entitled to catch up on other work, just because we haven’t met your particular priorities doesn’t mean we weren’t doing other things.”

With Cllr Kelly offering to show the chief executive his unanswered emails, and Mr Taaffe replying by suggesting they compare workloads, Cllr Laffan was forced to bring order to the meeting, banging his gavel off the table as the meeting descended into a shouting match.

When things had calmed down, Cllr Catherine Biddy Walsh offered her take on the alleged inability of council staff to reply promptly to councillors’ questions.

“Sometimes all you need to do is ring someone, pick up the phone and ask about getting ramps put in on a street,” she said. “I’ve messaged someone three times via our portal and had no response, and in the meantime my constituent is waiting for me to come back to them. That’s really the issue.

“Writing to the minister is futile, the system is the issue; it’s not just about pumping more money into it.”