The Aran island was under the spotlight this week, when a row over pay led to a cut in water supplies and air services, writes LORNA SIGGINSWestern Correspondent
A SMALL Atlantic island on the western edge of Europe receives a tap on its shoulders when it hasn’t balanced its books. Stiff measures have to be taken, assets disposed of – and then, just as the finances are back in order, a new crisis occurs, affecting basic services when no one wants to govern.
A forecast for Ireland in some not too distant future? Not quite, but close. In fact, it’s the reality for Inis Meáin, in outer Galway Bay, where events of the past week have shone a spotlight on the 200-strong island community.
And it’s a harsh spotlight at that, for an island used to far more sympathetic press. This is home to an internationally renowned knitwear company, an exclusive design hotel and restaurant and up to eight other tourism businesses. Inis Meáin is regarded as the most tranquil and unspoilt of the three Aran islands, drawing serious students of Irish who eschew the more “globalised” Inis Mór.
The playwright JM Synge was sufficiently inspired to spend five summers here – and in 2005 Garry Hynes's Druid Theatre Company performed its six-play DruidSynge cycle on the island's fort, Dún Conchúír. Martin McDonagh's award-winning play The Cripple of Inishmaanreflected a time before coastal communities had, as the writer Brendan Lehane once put it, the "wildness combed out of them". Yet the sort of tensions that can surface in a small and isolated community would have a certain resonance now.
SUCH TENSIONS ERUPTED earlier this week when the island’s water supply was cut and air services suspended in a row over payment due to staff. Nine employees running key services, including water and airstrip maintenance, for the island’s co-op, Comharchumann Inis Meáin Teo, had not been paid the week before, when it transpired that the bank had suspended the co-op accounts.
Siptu regional organiser Michael Kilcoyne called for the immediate intervention of the Minister for Community, Equality and Gaeltacht Affairs, Pat Carey, and said he was unhappy with the handling of the situation so far by Carey’s department and by Údarás na Gaeltachta, the Gaeltacht development authority.
The authority in turn responded with a statement from its chief executive, Pádraig Ó hAoláin, to the effect that long-term issues with the co-op needed to be resolved. The co-op itself had not functioned for the past six weeks, after the entire board had resigned.
The water supply, for which the co-op was responsible, was turned off sometime between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. Guest-house owners Angela Faherty and Máíre Pháídin Mulkerrins, who opened the island’s first BB, were distraught, as were Ruairí and Marie-Therese de Blacam of Inis Meáin Restaurant and Suites. Ruairí de Blacam booked 15 visitors on to the ferry back to the mainland that evening; nine of them had been staying at his establishment.
By Wednesday evening, after a day of frantic phone calls, the supply was restored. However, 10 businesses, including Inis Meáin Knitting Company, founded and run by Ruairí’s father, Tarlach de Blacam, issued a call for Galway County Council to take over long-term responsibility for the supply.
“I employ 16 people, we run a busy export trade and we need a water supply for our specialist cashmere-washing plant,” Tarlach de Blacam said. “We need to know someone can take responsibility for an uncertain situation.”
Ironically, water shortage has not been an issue for the island during the current prolonged dry spell – unlike its neighbour, Inis Mór, which has been receiving tanker deliveries from the local authority for the past few weeks. In 2002 the island co-op’s manager, Pól Ó Fóighil, marked the opening of a €2 million seawater desalination plant and associated wind farm, funded by the EU and several State departments and agencies.
The plant was ahead of its time but caused some controversy in the late 1990s, when a number of environmental groups objected to the planning application. It was designed to supplement existing ground-water supplies during certain periods, such as the summer tourist season, when the population of all three Aran islands tends to multiply. The plant experienced some teething problems during commissioning in 2002, when seaweed reportedly choked the intake pipe. The technical difficulties were resolved, but not before 50 visitors were taken ill that summer and elevated levels of E.coli were identified in health-board quality tests.
Some islanders say the roots of the current controversy date back to that period, when Ó Fóighil, the bainisteoir, or manager, and former Fine Gael senator, who died in 2005, ran the island co-op. Others say it predates Ó Foighil, and has its roots in long-running local rivalries.
Nicknamed “Báinín”, when he successfully challenged Oireachtas dress protocol in 1993 by establishing the right to wear his cóta báinín, or traditional wool jacket, to the Seanad, Ó Fóighil was a larger-than-life character who championed the rights of west-coast communities. Initially a teacher, Ó Fóighil was a staunch defender of the Irish language and was instrumental in establishing Irish-language summer colleges. When he moved into managing Gaeltacht co-operatives his “can-do” approach caused difficulties, but he was regarded as a man of integrity who acted on behalf of his people.
So when the Revenue began a three-year investigation after irregularities in co-op accounts were discovered, in 2005, it transpired that the overpayments on VAT claimed had been used to pay wages and other services benefiting the community.
"There was no personal gain here," one source close to the current controversy told The Irish Times. "It was a bit like the independent fiefdom of Inis Meáin." For both Údarás na Gaeltachta, which paid the co-op administration grant, and the Department of Gaeltacht affairs, which took over funding the airstrip from that authority, the Revenue inquiry was no joke.
A series of temporary managers endeavoured to resolve the problems, but their task was exacerbated by local politics. The most recent manager is acknowledged to have performed “miracles”. Four holiday homes owned by a subsidiary of the co-op were sold, and books were balanced by early this year.
However, the authority was still not happy with certain issues, and advised the co-op board, which required at least five members in order to function, to resign. At the recent deferred agm in mid-June, no one would stand for election. When the bank learned of this it suspended the account, leading to the situation where staff could not be paid wages, and the co-op manager, who was not a union member, had no option but to stand down.
SIPTU’S Michael Kilcoyne denies that the union instructed his members to switch off the water. He says there was a fault in the system. The fact that the island had sufficient reserves for five or six weeks led to suspicions on the island that it was no accident and that the union was using the water supply to “hold the island to ransom”.
“That’s an unfair claim,” Kilcoyne says. “Staff have a right to know who their employer is, and there are attendant health and safety issues – such as operation of the airstrip.” Siptu’s Conamara branch did write to Údarás na Gaeltachta on Wednesday, seeking clarification on the issue, and warning of a breach of industrial-relations procedures. Kilcoyne says he believes the authority “doesn’t want to know”.
Údarás na Gaeltachta denies this, saying it has been in negotiations for the past 18 months to resolve issues. Meetings were convened, but it is understood that divisions within the co-op made for fraught attempts at mediation.
Tarlach de Blacam says it is a “very delicate situation now” and nothing has been resolved. Air services were still suspended yesterday, but his company relies on the ferries for its exports to markets in Europe, north America and Japan.
Ruairí de Blacam says he feels very sorry for the nine people caught in a situation where their employer cannot pay.
“Everything is complicated by the fact that the co-op is not functioning. But the 10 businesses in our group employ 40 people, and we have to look after our staff,” says Ruairí de Blacam.
“We’ve all spent a long time here publicising Inis Meáin and putting it on the map. We’d hate to think that this could be affected by the sort of bad press we have had this week.”
