Richard Wynne

The Castlebar Information Age Project

As Chairman of Castlebar Information age town my committee and I have secured £ 1 million pounds of investment for our towns future. This competition Organised by Telecom Eireann was designed to energise local communities all around the country into examining the way relate to one another and the way we do business and interact with the rest of our community. My work with this committee resulted in a very close and unique working arrangement with Castlebar U.D.C. and with Mayo Co. Council, also we established contact with clubs and associations from every walk of life in the town.

The competition was open to all towns which had a population of not less than 5000 and no greater than 15000.

Castlebar fought off competition from over 55 other towns and made it to a final short list of four towns who were to compete for the ultimate prize of 15 million pounds. Ennis eventually emerged as the winner but I can assure you we came a very close second and it was very close.

It all started when the chamber of commerce spotted a small article in a business magazine which quoted Mr Alfie Kane the Chief Executive of Telecom Eireann, he was speaking after dinner at an IMI conference in limerick on the 18/10/96. His speech outlined his plan to stimulate local towns in Ireland to kick-start the information revolution.