Galway City Council rubbishes claim of ‘spiteful neglect’ on roundabout

City Hall stands accused of ‘spitefulness’ for the poor state of a city roundabout.

Mayor of Galway City, Councillor Pádraig Conneely, this week claimed the Kirwan roundabout near the Menlo Park Hotel has been ‘deliberately neglected’ by City Hall.

He said that weeds had been allowed to proliferate at the centre of this busy junction, unlike at other areas of the city that he claimed were tended to regularly by outdoor staff.

Kirwan was the subject of a groundswell of support against its conversion to traffic lights, as part of the ongoing N6 Multi-Modal Corridor Improvement Scheme. The proposal to replace it with traffic lights was rejected by elected representatives despite the recommendation of city officials.

The Fine Gael Councillor claimed that the reason the roundabout was being neglected was because officials were ‘sore’ that their proposal to convert the roundabout to a signalised junction was overwhelmingly rejected by the public.

The charge has been completely rejected by Galway City Council.

Director of Services for Transport and Infrastructure, Ciaran Hayes, said the priority for the City Council right now was to “keep traffic moving”.

Mr Hayes said his department had a number of other serious issues to progress such as the Bodkin Roundabout removal, which has started, and making sure that the Knocknacarra Community Centre is up and running.

He said another “very serious agenda item” was liaising with Irish Water, the company that will be metering homes for water charges in the coming years. There are other very serious issues facing the city, he said, and in that context, the issue of the maintenance of the roundabout was lower down the city’s list of priorities.