Call for Council to provide more in-house services, rather than outsourcing them

A Buncrana politician has called on Donegal County Council to prioritise the provision of basic services through its own resources, rather than outsourcing them.

Cllr Fionan Bradley tabled a motion on the issue at the latest Council meeting. He says in-house services make more sense all-round.

Cllr Bradley says the continual outsourcing and external procurement of various regular tasks can be extremely problematic.

“The Council is duty-bound to deliver certain services to the public, including house building, road lining and street sweeping, etc. Currently all of those services are being outsourced to private contractors,” Cllr Bradley explains.

“This creates a myriad of problems, including a delay in getting things done because, especially in relation to road lining, the contractors wait until they have several jobs in an area to do before completing them.”

“Furthermore, it means the Council has little to no control over the quality of the services being provided. Often there are a limited number of contractors providing certain services to the Council, and this leaves the Council in a position where it can’t bite the hand that feeds it.”

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Fianna Fail Cllr Bradley zeroed in on the recent issue of street sweeping in Buncrana to further underline his point.

“Previously the Town Council owned a sweeping machine and provided that service in-house. Buncrana suffered a double whammy with Fine Gael abolishing Town Councils and the County Council outsourcing the provision of that service.”

“Now that no contractor has tendered to provide that service, Buncrana has been left without street sweeping. I have proposed at several meetings that we buy a machine to be able to once again provide that service ourselves. If the Council owned its own machine, Buncrana would not have suffered in the intervening period.”

Cllr Bradley says in-house services are typically delivered to a high standard.

“When the Council does provide its services in-house, they are delivered to a high standard and usually quicker. This is evidenced especially in relation to the Croí Conaithe grant scheme and the Rural Regeneration team, which does stellar work right throughout the county.”