Galway 2020 has spent €18 million to date

Despite the public not catching any major show or event during Galway’s tenure as European Capital of Culture, organisers have managed to spend €18 million.

With just one million left over from the pot of funding so far secured from Irish and European taxpayers, they have spent four months negotiating with the Government to release the final tranche of €5 million which was originally promised. This will be used to stage a revised programme of 28 projects featuring largely local artists which will now run until next March.

The figures emerged in the first briefing for Galway City councillors since Storm Ciara forced the cancellation of the opening ceremony in February – the biggest single event for Galway’s year in the spotlight – and Covid-19 restrictions weeks later led to the cancellation of all public events.

At a meeting of the Council on Wednesday, 2020 Chief Executive Patricia Philbin revealed they had yet to finalise an insurance claim for pulling the plug on the €2.3m opening extravaganza as they are “currently working to consolidate the end of the project”.

But it was other figures “not presented in a transparent way” in the update which seemed to irk the councillors.

Several queried the €100,000 spent on hotels and travel and €200,000 on professional fees in the first three months of this year.

Cllr Eddie Hoare (FG) labelled it a “gravy train” that the public can see right through.

“Doomed” and “cursed” is how Cllr Frank Fahy (FG) described the project.
This is a shortened preview version of this article. To read a report of the discussion in full, see this week’s Galway City Tribune. You can buy a digital edition HERE.