My motion at June’s Full Council meeting, ‘Unless and until the council addresses its’ failure to ask all Town or County Twinning Associations to provide evidence of good governance, accountability, transparency and fairness in the expenditure of council funds which, being tax-payers money of up to €100,000 +/yearly, the Twinning Associations are likely to, and should be happy to provide, that the funds are reallocated to food banks and food share programmes around the county, including ( but not limited to) Newbridge Food Share Programme, The Dining Room Project and St. Vincent De Paul, currently providing food parcels for more than one hundred and forty families in Newbridge alone a week, and up to one thousand families around the county. And that as part of the review of council protocol in relation to town twinning that the council consider specific criteria that must first be met by all proposed new Twinning Associations before requests for increased expenditure of public monies on the Twinning of towns or county are considered.’
Here is the report Issued by: Sonya Kavanagh, Director of Service, Economic, Community and Cultural Development; ‘ The members agreed to allocate funding to Twinning in Budget 2017. Twinning Committees are required to provide costed work programme for the year. On receipt of this paperwork their grant is processed and receipts are then required to be submitted by a specified date later in the year. Having had a number of discussions at Municipal District level regarding Twinning it has been agreed that a Twinning Protocol and Procedure will be drafted and presented to the Protocol Committee for consideration at their October meeting.