Councillors hope legal loophole can halt bypass plans

City councillors opposed to the proposed city bypass road – now officially called the Galway City Transport Project – are hoping that a legal technicality could help them to stall the development.

Their move dates back to a City Council meeting in November, 2013, when councillors voted 13-2 under Section 85 of the Local Government Act, to allow Galway County Council be the lead agency for the project.

Councillors – who have asked City Council Chief Executive Brendan McGrath to get formal legal advice on their point – say that their go-ahead to the County Council was for a project known as the Galway City Outer Bypass (GCOB).

The councillors are now claiming that since the original GCOB was scuttled by objections and by the subsequent legal actions that went to the Irish Supreme Court and the European Court of Justice, their November 2013 decision could now be null and void.

They are doing so on the basis that the Galway City Outer Bypass project no longer exists as it is now the Galway City Transport Project – however senior City Council officials have poured cold water on the possibility of any legal problems arising.

City Council Chief Executive, Brendan McGrath, told last Monday evening’s Council meeting he was satisfied that the Section 85 process was robust and would stand up to any possible legal challenge. Director of Services, Joe O’Neill, also said that he was satisfied that the process was ‘okay’.

He agreed to the councillors’ request to seek formal legal advice on the issue and said that he would seek to have this advice available to them as soon as possible.

For more coverage on the bypass, see this week’s Galway City Tribune