An Independent member of Bundoran Urban District Council has said he is retiring from local politics after 22 years because he believed "vested interests ruled the roost" in the town.
Mr Dessie Mulhern, who works as a taxi-driver, said recent developments in the town had served only the interests of big business, and he was completely disillusioned.
"There are people in this town who seem to believe that everybody has a price. I know that for the past 20 years they have been trying to find my price. Thankfully they have not found it," he commented. Mr Mulhern said that on one occasion he was offered a lot of extra business for his taxi company which had always been denied to him if he was prepared to support a particular vote on the UDC.
A number of decisions had been taken which penalised ordinary people and small businesses while larger business interests were protected. "When water rates were brought in here, they were put on caravan parks, but they weren't put on big businesses - they were treated as normal houses. Even at the last estimates meeting, the manager tried to bring in a commercial water rate, and it was thrown out.
"It would have brought in about £30,000 but what they did was cut the estimates and cut the spending here, there, and everywhere to make up this money, so the town suffered by having £30,000 less spent on it," Mr Mulhern said.
The retiring councillor is particularly unhappy with the large-scale development of holiday homes in Bundoran under the seaside renewal tax scheme. Up to 300 apartments and houses have been built under this scheme.
He said that as a result the price of development land had soared. The UDC had been given approval to build 10 new council houses but it was proving very difficult to get land, he said. One developer had offered the council land at £25,000 per acre and then raised the price.
Mr Mulhern also blamed the tax scheme for the dramatic rise in house prices. "Ordinary people are no longer able to afford to buy a house in the town. There are some new three-bedroom houses selling for £200,000 now."
While the tax scheme was introduced by central Government, local representatives should have taken some steps toward reducing its impact on ordinary people. Instead, vested interests in the town benefited greatly from it at the expense of ordinary people, he maintained.
In the running of council business, Mr Mulhern said he was also totally opposed to a recent practice of holding "workshop meetings", attended by all councillors, but which are not open to the public.
"These are supposed to be about the Millennium Project, but they are taking over the day-to-day council business as far as I can see. At the last meeting we talked about roads, housing and other council business. It seems to me they want to run council business away from the view of the public."