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Only 4 out of 20 agenda items at the Council's Enterprise, Regeneration and Tourism Committee on Monday night, 8 August were up for discussion in a public forum.
Well over half of the items were marked "For Noting" which means that there is rarely an opportunity for Councillors present to discuss issues presented in the papers. In fact Councillors are regularly asked to take up their queries on matters with Council Officers after the meeting, where of course the public have no possibility of hearing responses.
Downpatrick Councillor Cadogan Enright wasn't having any of it though, and he did manage to get to speak, despite the Chairperson Councillor Robert Burgess trying to wrap the meeting up as quickly and without fuss as possible. Cllr Enright wanted to know why the Albert Basin park proposals wasn't part of the recent Levelling Up Fund application despite Newry City Councillor Gavin Malone putting forward a motion to Council to include it in 2021.
As well as the Levelling Up Fund Item others marked "for noting" included AONB and Geopark Update, Full Fibre NI Update and Planning Performance figures for June.
Chairperson Cllr Burgess "If there's nothing else then, that brings us on 'For Noting' from 13 to 23, they're all for noting and anybody wishes to say anything to that see the relevant officer, but we need a proposer and a seconder that we accept them. Proposed by Dermot and seconded by Gary
"Ok folks the people that's it, can I just wish you a safe journey home and for those online thank you for attending the meeting."
Cllr Cadogan Enright then managed to get in "Chairperson just to raise a point of governance please
"A governance issue on Item 13 where we passed a motion from Gavin [Malone] on the inclusion of the Albert Basin in the Levelling Up Scheme and I don't see it there."
Happy to pick this up with you offline
Director of ERT Conor Mallon then spoke "Councillor, I'm happy to pick this up with you offline, however the notice of motion that was presented by Cllr Malone was not approved in the original form that it was presented to the committee. The motion was amended by this committee to have a meeting with the Economic Forum which is established within the Council structures to discuss the notice of motion and it was recommended following that .. The recommendation that was presented and sorry I don't have the detail of the motion in front of me nor the recommendation, but the recommendation did not match the original motion that was presented and that was agreed by this committee but I'm happy to discuss it with you whenever I have the detail at hand.
Cllr Enright "But Chair all parties did agree that we should include that project in the Levelling Up. It made sense within the context of the other items in Levelling Up."
Conor Mallon "That's not my recollection Councillor, that there was no agreement to include it in funding for any available funding to Council
Chairman "Cadogan you may just see Conor whenever he gets information" and with that the meeting concluded after just 40 minutes.
4 out of 20 items up for Discussion in Public
Out of the 20 items on the agenda 12 were for noting (one of them restricted), 4 were discussed away from public and media because they were marked as "Restricted" * and just 4 were subject to the public ear.
* "This item is deemed to be restricted by virtue of Paragraph 3 of Part 1 of Schedule 6 of the LocalGovernment Act (Northern Ireland) 2014 - information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person (including the Council holding that information) and the public may by resolution be excluded during this item of business."
