CITY TRIBUNE
Galway City Council u-turn on operation of Christmas market
The annual Christmas market will be run again this year by a private operator – and not Galway City Council.
City councillors last November agreed to set aside €150,000 in the 2018 budget so that the Council would take over the running of the market.
But management of the local authority have poured cold water on the idea, claiming they do not have the resources in-house to run the Continental market in Eyre Square.
In the absence of the Chief Executive, Brendan McGrath, and his Deputy, Tom Connell, it was left to Acting Director of Services, Gary McMahon to break the bad news to elected members at a local authority meeting.
“Galway City Council does not have the capacity to run the market – we don’t have the staff, the resources, the equipment. We just don’t have it. It will have to be contracted out,” he said.
Councillor Mike Cubbard (Ind) was incensed with the statement and questioned what the €150,000 set aside in the 2018 budget to take over the market would now be spent on. He said: “Why didn’t the executive admit that we couldn’t manage the market from the outset?”
Cllr Ollie Crowe (FF) said it was “completely unacceptable” that the Chief Executive and Deputy Chief Executive were not in the Chamber to answer questions from elected members.
Cllr John Walsh (FG) was one of several members who criticised the executive for presenting only an interim report on the 2017 Christmas Market.
It was May, he said, and at this stage, midway through the year, the City Council should have had a full report prepared on the last Christmas market so that they can make informed decisions about the next one.
Mayor Pearce Flannery (FG) shouldered some of the blame for the full report not being prepared yet. He said that due to commitments of the office of mayor, it hadn’t been possible for him to meet with taxi operators about how the 2017 market was for them.
Mr McMahon said the Council hadn’t yet met with other public transport representatives including Bus Éireann to get their feedback either. They will endeavour to do so in the coming weeks and the feedback from taxis and bus operators will be included in the final report to be presented to councillors at the June meeting, said Mr McMahon.
In the interim report, Chief Executive Brendan McGrath said: “The live-review feedback indicates significant concern expressed by the traders surveyed, following media reports at the time with regard to the possibility of the Council taking over the running of the Christmas market. The review also highlights that many traders said they were very unsure if they would be involved if this happened as they felt the market in its current operation was well managed and run”.
Cllr Pádraig Conneely (FG) again criticised the Christmas Market, which he said was poorly run. He said the City Council was hypocritical for allowing a beer tent to serve alcohol in the market, which was contrary to the Healthy Cities initiative, which the city had signed up to.
Cllr Conneely said there were 281 licensed premises in the city, including 34 off licences, and having a beer tent as the focal point of the market was wrong and encouraged drunkenness and anti-social behaviour.
Cllr Declan McDonnell (Ind) said €150,000 was set aside in this year’s budget for the Council to run the market – it was not, under any circumstances, to be given to a private operator. He shared the concerns of others about the beer tent and said he passed by one night at 9.15pm and there were 250 people queuing to get into the tent which was supposed to close at 10pm. Cllr Terry O’Flaherty (Ind) and Mayor Flannery agreed that the beer tent should close earlier.
Cllr Ollie Crowe, a publican, said it was wrong that the beer tent was serving tankards of beer, which equate to five units of alcohol or two and a half pints. “It should not be served that way. If there’s going to be a bar in the market it should operate under the same conditions we operate under,” he said.
Mr McMahon said part of the €150,000 could be used this year for outdoor screenings of Christmas movies as part of the market, a suggestion that was made by Cllr Peter Keane (FF)
Many councillors said there was too much food in the market and not enough crafts or local produce but Mr McMahon pointed out that “only” 29% of the stalls were food. The interim report, dated April 9, 2018, did not give any details on the number of visitors to the market. It cited the licence application, which said “an attendance in excess of 250,000 people was expected” but it did not say whether or not this target was met.
Mayor Flannery, citing a book entitled ‘How To Lie With Statistics’, wondered who collated the figures “because they can be manipulated”.
From the Galway City Tribune – An impassioned plea for a ‘masterplan’ that would guide Galway City into the future has been made in the Dáil. Galway West TD Catherine Connolly stated this week that there needed to be an all-inclusive approach with “vision and leadership” in order to build a sustainable city.
Deputy Connolly spoke at length at the crisis surrounding traffic and housing in Galway city and said that not all of the blame could be laid at the door of the local authority.
She said that her preference would be the provision of light rail as the main form of public transport, but that this would have to be driven by the government.
“I sat on the local council for 17 years and despaired at all of the solutions going down one road, metaphorically and literally. In 2005 we put Park & Ride into the development plan, but that has not been rolled out. A 2016 transport strategy was outdated at the time and still has not been updated.
“Due to the housing crisis in the city, a task force was set up in 2019. Not a single report or analysis has been published on the cause of the crisis,” added Deputy Connolly.
She then referred to a report from the Land Development Agency (LDA) that identified lands suitable for the provision of housing. But she said that two-thirds of these had significant problems and a large portion was in Merlin Park University Hospital which, she said, would never have housing built on it.
In response, Minister Simon Harris spoke of the continuing job investment in the city and also in higher education, which is his portfolio.
But turning his attention to traffic congestion, he accepted that there were “real issues” when it came to transport, mobility and accessibility around Galway.
“We share the view that we need a Park & Ride facility and I understand there are also Bus Connects plans.
“I also suggest that the City Council reflect on her comments. I am proud to be in a Government that is providing unparalleled levels of investment to local authorities and unparalleled opportunities for local authorities to draw down,” he said.
Then Minister Harris referred to the controversial Galway City Outer Ring Road which he said was “struck down by An Bord Pleanála”, despite a lot of energy having been put into that project.
However, Deputy Connolly picked up on this and pointed out that An Bord Pleanála did not say ‘No’ to the ring road.
“The High Court said ‘No’ to the ring road because An Bord Pleanála acknowledged it failed utterly to consider climate change and our climate change obligations.
“That tells us something about An Bord Pleanála and the management that submitted such a plan.”
In the end, Minister Harris agreed that there needed to be a masterplan for Galway City.
“I suggest it is for the local authority to come up with a vision and then work with the Government to try to fund and implement that.”
The new Salmon Weir pedestrian and cycle bridge will be officially opened to the public next Friday, May 26.
Work on the €10 million bridge got underway in April 2022, before the main structure was hoisted into place in early December.
A lunchtime tape-cutting ceremony will take place on Friday, as the first pedestrians and cyclists traverse the as-yet-unnamed bridge.
The Chief Executive of Galway City Council, Brendan McGrath, previously said the bridge, once opened, would remove existing conflicts between pedestrians, cyclists and traffic “as well as facilitating the Cross-City Link public transport corridor over the existing 200-year-old bridge”.
The naming of the new bridge has been under discussion by the Council’s Civic Commemorations Committee since late last year.
One name that has been in the mix for some time is that of the first woman in Europe to graduate with an engineering degree – Alice Perry.
Ms Perry, who was from Wellpark, graduated from Queen’s College Galway (now University of Galway) in 1906. The university’s engineering building is named in her honour.
The bridge was built by Jons Civil Engineering firm in County Meath and was assembled off-site before being transported to Galway. Funding for the project was provided in full by the National Transport Authority and the European Regional Development Fund.
(Photo: Sheila Gallagher captured the city’s new pedestrian footbridge being raised on the south side of the Salmon Weir Bridge in December. It will officially open next Friday, May 26).
From the Galway City Tribune – Minister of State for Local Government and Planning, Kieran O’Donnell was labelled a “disgrace” for overturning councillors’ decisions to rezone land in the new City Development Plan.
Minister O’Donnell (pictured) confirmed in a letter to Council Chief Executive Brendan McGrath last week that he was reversing 25 material alternations made by councillors to the CDP 2023-29. He made the decision on the advice of Office of Planning Regulator (OPR).
Minister O’Donnell directed that 14 land parcels that were subject to land-use zoning changes by councillors as part of the Material Alterations to the Draft CDP should be reversed.
He directed that a further 11 land parcels in the city should become “unzoned”.
The Minister found that the CDP had not been made in a manner consistent with recommendations of the OPR, which required specific changes to the plan to ensure consistency with the national planning laws and guidelines.
At last week’s Council meeting Cllr Eddie Hoare (FG) asked for clarity on the process by which councillors could rezone the lands that had been changed by the Minister’s direction.
Cllr Declan McDonnell said, “What he [Minister O’Donnell] has done is an absolute disgrace”.
And he asked: “Do we have to have another development plan meeting to deal with it?”
Both Cllrs Hoare and McDonnell wondered what would become of the lands that were rezoned or unzoned by the ministerial direction.
Mr McGrath said the Council had put forward an argument in favour of retaining the material alterations in the plan, but ultimately the Minister sided with OPR.
He said if councillors want to make alterations to the new plan, they could go through the process of making a material alteration but this was lengthy.
The Save Roscam Peninsula campaign welcomed the Minister’s decision.
In a statement to the Galway City Tribune, it said the direction would mean the Roscam village area on the Roscam Peninsula will be unzoned and a number of land parcels would revert back to agriculture/high amenity.
A spokesperson for the campaign said: “the material alterations made by city councillors following lobbying by developers continued the long-standing practice of councillors facilitating a developer-led plan rather than an evidence- and policy-based plan that meets the needs of the city.
“The Minister’s direction is an important step in restoring confidence in the planning system. It is clear from the City Council’s own evidence on future housing projections that there was no requirement to zone these lands for residential purposes in order to meet the needs of the targeted population increase up to 2029,” the spokesperson added.
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