Mayor Willie to lead Omaha Patrick's Day Parade
NAAS, 28 February 2002: by Trish Whelan. Naas Mayor Willie Callaghan (right) has been invited to act as Grand Marshall at the Omaha St Patrick’s Day Parade by that city's Mayor, Mike Fahey.
He will also attend a special banquet in Omaha to be hosted by the Mayor. Other guests will include the Governor of Nebraska and the Irish Ambassador to the US as well as a number of Congressmen and Senators.
But the trip has been labelled a 'waste of money' and 'a gravy train' by opposition colleagues.
Willie Callaghan will be accompanied on the trip, to take place during St Patrick's week, by Cllrs Timmy Conway (who instigated the Naas/Omaha twinning) and Seamie Moore, along with Naas town clerk Declan Kirrane.
The Naas delegation will also attend a meeting of the Omaha Council and will visit the Nebraska State Senate in Lincoln. "This will give us a unique opportunity to put Naas on the map for US visitors coming to Ireland," Timmy Coway told KNN.
Cllr Conway said the Naas delegation will ‘explore the relationship with Naas Community College’. He said Creighton University is anxious to assist with the setting up of an Outreach College in Naas and would like a twinning with Maynooth University in North Kildare.
The three will also meet with Omaha Chamber of Commerce 'to enhance links with the Naas Chamber'.
Naas has been asked to host the 48 undergraduate and graduate business students from the University of Nebraska for a day. The students will be in Ireland to study Irish businesses and American businesses operating in this country.
Naas Youth Parliament will attend school in Omaha for two days and will present the idea of starting a Youth Parliament in Omaha. They will be hosted there by families with young people of the same age.
Cllr Conway concluded by saying that the Naas town clerk and the three councillors ‘will be given an insight into the workings of the City of Omaha’.
However, the trip has been labelled ‘a ridiculous waste of public money’ and ‘a gravy train’. In a stinging attack at a Naas Town Council meeting last week, Cllr Pat McCarthy (left) said there is no support in Naas for this latest twinning with Omaha, Nebraska, which was passed by a single vote by Naas councillors last month.
But Cllr Pat O’Reilly said the Council has been officially invited to spend the St Patrick’s Day week there and it would be an insult not to go. He proposed that the chairman Cllr Willie Callaghan attend with Cllrs Timmy Conway and Seamie Moore.
Cllr Mary Glennon said she was surprised to hear Cllr O’Reilly supporting this twinning when ‘we have such problems within the Twinning Committee trying to sustain the number of twinnings already in place’. Naas is already twinned with Allaire in France; St David’s City in Wales; Casallatica in Italy and Dillingen in Bavaria.
Pat O’Reilly, a member of the Twinning Committee, said he had personally raised the question of whether or not to continue with that particular committee. But, he said, this trip is being done through the Town Council. However, Mary Glennon replied that there was ‘a very cold wind blowing at the last Twinning Committee in relation to the US twinning’.
Cllr Anthony Egan wondered if a large delegation went to Omaha, would that put a major dent in the budget allocated for twinnings which could mean less money available for the other twinnings. “It would cost a fortune,” put in Pat McCarthy.
Timmy Conway said the only reason the business students want to come to Naas is because of its special relationship with their own city.
An angry Mary Glennon said she resented the money being spent on this trip ‘when you can’t even get a footpath repaired in Naas’. “We don’t have the support of the town, or the Twinning Committee for this,” she stormed. “The public perception of this trip is of a ‘gravy train’.
The proposal by Pat O’Reilly was carried by 5 votes to 4. In favour of a delegation travelling to Omaha were Cllrs Callaghan, Conway, Moore, O’Reilly, Bracken and Byrne. Against were Cllrs Egan, Glennon and McCarthy.
©2002knn