Galway City in danger of getting ‘dirty old town’ reputation

From this week’s Galway City Tribune – Galway is in danger of becoming renowned as a dirty old town unless the City Council and businesses join forces to tackle its “filthy” state.

The Chairperson of Galway City Tidy Towns, Níall McNelis, has hit out at what he described as the “embarrassing” condition of the city centre – calling on the City Council and business owners to ‘step up to the plate’ or face losing the city’s good reputation permanently.

Beer and urine-stained footpaths; overflowing and stinking bins; and unkempt local authority-owned equipment were all colliding to create ‘a very bad look’, he said.

“The fact is the city is absolutely filthy – even the bins are manky. The Council has dropped the ball and as a result, the overall look of the place is grubby,” said Cllr McNelis.

“The Council staff who come in every morning and do fantastic work are doing everything they possibly can but there’s clearly a resources issue here – they clean the place and give us a blank page every morning, but the page is beer-stained at this stage.

“Senior management in City Hall needs to get its act together because Galway stands to lose out big time if we get a reputation for being just another grubby town,” continued the former mayor.

Power-hosing needed to be considered, he said. Such was the state of the pavements in busy areas – such as Eyre Square and Shop Street – no amount of rain would remove the dirt.

(File photo)

This is a shortened preview version of this article. To read the rest of the story, see the June 3 edition of the Galway City Tribune. You can buy a digital edition HERE.