Council merger is now off the table

Plans to amalgamate Galway County and City Councils have been put to bed once and for all – according to a local TD who said the focus should now shift to addressing the chronic underfunding of the county authority.

Deputy Seán Canney said it had been confirmed to him by Minister for Local Government, Darragh O’Brien, that amalgamation plans ‘are off the agenda’.

“What he said to me is he didn’t want to go into a process where there would be a huge amount of resistance to it.

“What I said in response was that he still needs to fix the funding situation regardless of whether amalgamation was on the cards or not,” said the TD for Galway East.

Deputy Canney said he had sought and received assurances from the Minister that funding issues in the County – a deficit estimated to be in excess of €10 million annually – would be addressed, but not this side of Christmas.

“The Minister confirmed he would not be meeting with the Executive of Galway County Council before Christmas – he may come in January but he did say they were looking at rebalancing finances in the local authority.

“My view is that now they’ve dropped the monkey of their back in terms of amalgamation, the only other issue that needs their attention is funding. My concern had always been that while they were still looking at amalgamation, they wouldn’t progress anything on the financial problems currently faced by the Council,” said the former minister.

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