*Newly elected Cathaoirleach of the Shannon MD Cllr John Crowe (FG) with his predecessor Cllr Pat O’Gorman (FF). Photograph: Páraic McMahon.
CLLR JOHN Crowe (FG) has been elected as the Cathaoirleach of the Shannon Municipal District for the third time.
Friday’s AGM of the Shannon MD saw the Sixmilebridge man elected to the Chair where he succeeds Cllr Pat O’Gorman (FF). Crowe was proposed to the role by Cllr Tony Mulcahy (FG) and seconded by Cllr Michael Begley (IND).
“I’ll have a go anyway,” quipped Cllr Crowe when he was asked by the outgoing Chair if he was accepting the new position. He praised the work of his predecessor in bringing all seven councillors on the same page in the first year of a new term. A past president of the Shannon and District Lions Club, John was heavily involved in the opening of the Sixmilebridge Railway Station and a major extension to St. Finnachta’s National School during his time as a local representative.
First elected to the local authority in 1999, Cllr Crowe told the meeting he was “delighted” to become Cathaoirleach. “It is a unique Municipal District, we’ve the longest serving councillor part of our District in Michael Begley and we’ve the youngest councillor in Clare in Rachel Hartigan, that is unique to have something like that in a Municipal District, we have the experience and the youth. I’d be coming in after Michael, the steadying hand is very important. It is very unique to have something like that”. He continued, “there’s great experience there”.
An appeal was made by Cllr Crowe for the newly appointed Chief Executive of the Council, Gordon Daly not to make any changes to the staff within the Shannon MD. “We’ve always had a fantastic team but we’ve lost an awful lot of people, there was a period in the last term where every time you went into the office we had someone new, we have to get onto our CEO to say we don’t want a change of team”.
He reserved particular praise for staff officer, Patricia O’Neill, “Patricia is one of the longest serving members, she keeps us on the straight and narrow, I don’t know where we would go without her, thank you for your guidance. We want to keep the team we have”.
Projects listed as key for the coming twelve months by the new Cathaoirleach were the One Shannon Hub and the N19 Access Road in Shannon. “It is so important that the road and Hub are progressed”.
Shannon Airport and Sixmilebridge Rail Station requires a greater link, Cllr Crowe maintained. “We have been on about a connection from Sixmilebridge Rail Station to Shannon Airport, hopefully we’ll be doing more on this in September, we have to look at that, we have a railway station with people coming from all over the country, we have to look at a connection not rail wise but by a bus or coach”.
“We’ve the highest population in the county in this Municipal District, we have Shannon and Sixmilebridge which are the second and third biggest towns in the county, then we go down to Westbury, we’ve a big challenge ahead of us,” Crowe concluded.
Having received 1,256 first preference votes last June, John had the second highest vote in the Shannon MD and was the third councillor elected.
Elected as Leas Cathaoirleach was Cllr Begley on the proposal of Cllr David Griffin (FF) and Cllr Mulcahy. “I will give John all the support I can, not that much will be needed,” he commented. It is the second Council term in a row that the Clonlara representative has served as second in command to Crowe.
