By dictating the content of the Mayo County Development Plan, the Minister for the Environment Mr. John Gormley undermined his pledge to strengthen the role of County Councils and their members.

This was stated by Independent MEP Marian Harkin when she described the actions of the Minister as dictatorial and contradictory.

“By justifying his refusal to accept the County Plan, agreed unanimously by the members of the Mayo County Council, and citing conflict with the Government’s National  Spatial Strategy in justification, the Minister is being particularly hypocritical”, she said.  When the Taoiseach Bertie Ahern had launched the National Spatial Strategy in 2002, he wrote 'This framework will open up new opportunities in the regions and give people greater choice in relation to where they work and live' Marian Harkin said.  “How does this statement of Government policy compare with the determination of the present Minister for the Environment to force the people of Mayo into living in the two towns of Castlebar and Mayo and removing their choice to live in the many other towns and villages in the way they have always done”, she asked.

The Government, by it’s  decisions in relation to decentralisation of Government departments and agencies had totally undermined it’s own National Spatial Strategy by failing to concentrate them in the gateways and hubs and now the Minister for the Environment was insisting that a County Development Plan was to be forced to concentrate growth in two towns without any consideration for the development needs of all other parts of Co. Mayo, the Independent MEP said.

The Minister had every right to challenge any draft County Development Plan but to do so by using selective and erroneous statistics was unworthy and unacceptable, she said.  “It was particularly invidious of the Minister’s officials at the meeting of the Oireachtas Environment Committee this week, to attempt to focus blame for water quality problems in County Mayo on one-off houses when it has been the failure of Government policy to properly fund and deliver water and sewerage schemes which has led to problems in Mayo and other counties”, she said.

“The current impasse can only be resolved by the Minister developing a better understanding of the right of the members of Mayo County Council to agree the county Development Plan and where, as is the case currently in Mayo, the members have acted in response to the needs of the electorate, he must avoid dictat and be much more mindful of the democratic process involved in local government”, Marian Harkin MEP said.