Cllrs clash on lobbying for grant to big snooker event

Date Published: 19-Mar-2013

By Dara Bradley

A Galway City Councillor has been criticised by a political rival for lobbying colleagues to sink €10,000 of public funds into last weeks’ international snooker event hosted by a commercial company for which he, and his brother, are associated with.

City Councillor Pádraig Conneely (FG) questioned whether Galway City Council was right to give €10,000 for an international sports event run by an events company associated with Labour Party City Councillor Niall McNelis and his brother, Shay McNelis.

Cllr McNelis said the criticism was an attempt to tarnish his name; he insisted that he did not benefit financially from the event and was only involved in a voluntary capacity. He also said the Council’s money was ‘money well spent’ and was used to promote Galway around the world including to millions of television viewers.

“I’m not a director of the company, I’m not a partner in the company, I’ve no financial gain whatsoever . . . my involvement is purely in a voluntary capacity,” stressed Cllr McNelis.

The €10,000 funding was granted to T.H.E Agency, an events company that organised the Players Tour Championship Grand Finals, a for-profit snooker event that concluded in NUI Galway on Sunday. The money was to promote the city at the event, and the Council agreed at the eleventh hour to grant the monies when alternative funding from Fáilte Ireland failed to materialise.

Members of the City Council’s Corporate Policy Group (CPG) received a presentation from Connor Coyle of T.H.E. Agency on Monday where he sought €15,000 in sponsorship from the Council in return for advertising space at the televised snooker event.

Cllr McNelis, who is not a member of the CPG, is named as being a component of the company T.H.E Agency (The Helpful Entertainment Agency). He had asked that the CPG hear the presentation from Mr Coyle.

“The organisers of the PTC Final are World Snooker and an Irish events company, T.H.E Agency, this is made up of Shea McNelis, Connor Coyle and Niall McNelis,” reads the document circulated to CPG members.

Cllr McNelis has also declared that he is “promoter T.H.E Agency” in the occupations/profession/remuneration section of the most recent declarations of interests, which are filed at City Hall and must be filled out by elected representatives yearly. Voluntary roles are not generally included in the register.

The CPG agreed to provide €10,000 for the event, and this was subsequently passed by a majority of Councillors at the full Council meeting later on Monday.

Eleven of the 12 Councillors present voted for the funding – Cllr Catherine Connolly was not present due to illness, Cllr McNelis absented himself from the meeting for the vote and Cllr Conneely dissented.

Cllr Conneely yesterday questioned whether the funding would have been granted if he, rather than Cllr McNelis, was promoting the event. “I doubt very much it would, it wouldn’t even have been discussed, it’d be thrown out,” he said.

He said Cllr McNelis was a promoter for the event, and therefore there was a conflict in him lobbying for it to get funds.

The €10,000 comes from a fund established by the Council late last year to promote events that would bring tourists to the city.

There is around €275,000 in the fund, yet no guidelines are in place as to how it should be dispersed. Both Cllrs Conneely and McNelis voted for the establishment of that fund.

The City Manager issued draft guidelines on how the marketing fund should be administered but it was only a discussion document and the guidelines haven’t been passed. They were distributed at the CPG meeting on Monday.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Sentinel.