Council slammed for roundabout fiasco

Date Published: 05-Apr-2012

BY CIARAN TIERNEY

City officials have been called on to explain why they failed to reveal a contractor’s decision to withdraw from a project to convert Galway’s biggest roundabout into a signalised junction for five weeks.

Roadstone’s withdrawal from the contract to upgrade the Bodkin Roundabout, near the Galway Shopping Centre, was conveyed to senior officials as far back as February 24 but only emerged through our sister paper, the Sentinel, on Tuesday.

Officials made no reference to the enforced delay to the project during a public meeting on the roundabouts issue attended by over 200 people at the Pillo Hotel over two weeks ago, nor at the Galway City Council meeting of March 12.

The officials did not reveal the enforced delay to the Bodkin Roundabout when they agreed to bow to ‘people power’ by abandoning plans for the Kirwan Roundabout, near the Menlo Park Hotel, even though they were aware of Roadstone’s decision for more than two weeks at that stage.

Any enforced delay to the Bodkin Roundabout change-over was never mentioned at the public meeting, even though the Council had decided to put work back to late August or early September in order to avoid the peak tourist season.

“Here was a very serious issue on a very serious subject and there was no mention of it either at the Council meeting on March 12 or the public meeting on March 20, even though the contractor pulled out on February 24,” said Cllr Padraig Conneely (FG) yesterday.

“I think it is very insulting to the elected members, and to the people who attended that public meeting that the first they heard of this was when they read it in the Sentinel on Tuesday.”

He accused the city officials of “sitting on the issue” for the past five weeks and pointed out that the conversion of the Bodkin Roundabout was mentioned several times during the meeting about the Kirwan Roundabout.

For more on this story, see the Galway City Tribune.