Christmas comes early in Trim

Meath County Council is to make contact with the company behind last year's Trim Christmas Market to discuss bringing it back to the town again this year and to find out what the cost would be to the council.

Dara McGowan, senior executive officer with Meath County Council explained that each municipal district has a budget of €8,000 for arts, festivals and festive lighting and they would have only about €3,000 left in the budget to go towards the market if they go ahead with it, after St Patrick's Day funding, Christmas lighting and Christmas tree costs are taken into account.

Last year Meath County Council gave sponsorship of €6,000 from its festivals' budget towards the two-day market and councillors also gave individual allocations.

The Christmas Market was on the agenda of the March meeting of Trim MD at the request of councillors as they felt it had been quite rushed last year and wanted more advance planning if they decided to run it again.
Cllr Caroline Lynch said she felt an opportunity to link more closely with the community had been missed last year.  
She asked if there was a tendering process where a local community group could potentially put forward to deliver it cheaper or were they going back to the same company with revised requests.  

Mr McGowan confirmed he had not yet spoken to the company involved.
He said if there were community groups out that they could come to them and they would look at the various proposals.
Cllr Trevor Golden proposed that they engage with the company again and see if it is possible to run the market adding that they were very good and had a lot of experience. However, he said if another group wants to come to them they will look at them all.
Cllr French said while there were some difficulties, it had been a success.
He said it was important that they get traders involved as early as possible if they run it again.
Cllr Ronan McKenna said: 'I thought it was a great idea and supported it. I didn't feel let down. Sometimes you don't make an omelette without breaking eggs. It was a good product and good for Trim.' He said unless something better came along he would be backing it.

Cllr Lynch said she was “not anti-Christmas market” but was concerned over where the money is coming from.

Cllr Golden responded that they needed a figure before they could discuss it further and it was agreed that Mr McGowan would go back to the company and find out the figures.
He said any interested groups can come forward and if a better proposal comes up, they can go with it.