Mayor believes many would like ‘hybrid’ meetings

It is still not clear when local authorities will be able to return to face-to-face meetings, the mayor of the Mullingar Municipal District, Cllr Aoife Davitt says.

“We are following public health advice in relation to it,” Cllr Davitt told the Westmeath Examiner, saying that every councillor is looking forward to being able to return to real-life meetings."

“Obviously the opening of the county buildings to the public was a step forward, and it is really positive that the opening of the country is happening and that people can start getting back to living normal normally,” she said, before adding that under the guidance, there would be a problem holding meetings in their pre-Covid manner because of the number of people who need to attend.

While the local authorities don’t meet in August, their meetings up to that time were held online using MS Teams.

An advantage to the online meetings was that the time cap of 1 hour 55 minutes in place for real-life meetings doesn’t apply, so the business can all be conducted in one sitting but, says Cllr Davitt, councillors prefer to be in the same physical room, although she can see potential for retention of a hybrid model into the future – one in which councillors and officials can choose whether to attend in person or to dial in.

“It gives options to people who may not be able to attend, for whatever reason that may be.

“It’s probably there to stay for a little while, and it could stay into the future, but we are definitely anxious to get back to in-person meeting because it is easier to communicate, I suppose, between ourselves and with the executive too, and to get the work pushed through a little bit quicker, we feel.”

“I think people would like to see that too, whether it be the councillors, or whether it be the executive or whether it be the general public.”

The hybrid model does, she agrees, open up to a greater extent the ability of the public to view meetings for themselves: “We want to be as open and as transparent as possible, and I know that some councils have gone that way.”