Businesses call for action to remove Occupy Galway camp

Date Published: 08-May-2012

BY FRANK FARRAGHER

ALMOST 25 city centre businesses have called for action to be taken to remove the Occupy Galway encampment from the top of Eyre Square, the results of a survey carried out by a city councillor have shown this week.

The businesses in the Eyre Square area were asked two questions in the letter circulated to them by Cllr. Padraig Conneely early last week.

The first question asked if the business people felt that the encampment was having a negative effect on Eyre Square while the second one asked if it should be removed.

Cllr. Conneely told The Sentinel that there was a unanimous ‘yes’ reply to both questions from close on 25 respondents, something that indicated the level of frustration and anger on this issue from businesses in that area.

“We are looking here at people who are paying rates at a premium level and yet, right in their midst, the City Council are allowing a most unsightly encampment to stay there.

“The Occupy Movement has been removed from all other cities in Ireland, and also from London and New York, but here in Galway the City Council have just stood by and done nothing.

“The businesses in this area, and indeed all of the people of the city, deserve a more pro-active response from the City Council on this issue.

“The Eyre Square facility is one to be enjoyed by all of the people of the city, and all those who visit it too. What we have here is anarchy taking over, and nothing being done about it,” said Cllr. Conneely.

He is set to raise the issue again at next Monday night’s City Council meeting when he will be asking the City Manager, Joe O’Neill, for a deadline date on the removal of the encampment.

The Occupy Galway encampment has also been in situ for over six months, having set themselves up in Eyre Square last October as part of the national and international network of such protests, almost all of which have now dissipated.

Last December, the Occupy Galway movement agreed to move their encampment to a more northerly aspect of Eyre Square, in order to facilitate the setting up of the Christmas Market.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Sentinel.