CITY TRIBUNE
Galway native’s story of dealing with Covid-19 emergency in Spain
A Galway woman living in Spain has painted a picture of how a true lockdown would look like if introduced in Ireland.
Iseult Harrington from Menlo has been confined to her third-floor apartment in a suburb of Valencia since last Saturday night with her seven-year-old daughter Ana Rosa.
Streets are patrolled with a heavy police presence to ensure that people remain indoors. Fines of between €500 and €3,000 have been levied on those caught breaking the emergency laws, with jail terms threatened for persistent flouting.
A pass is given to dog owners to walk their pets outside, but they must remain within two streets of their home. 
A father out walking his child in a buggy was hit with a substantial fine when his protests of needing fresh air fell on deaf ears.
“You have to show your ID and justify why you are outside and where you are going. Only one person can go out to the pharmacy if they have a prescription or to the supermarket for groceries, which means I would have to leave my daughter at home alone,” she said.
“You can’t have more than one person in a car – people with split custody have to bring their divorce papers with them to prove they have a reason for travelling.
“Only two people at a time are allowed into the supermarket and from what I’m hearing there are two-hour queues to get inside. Once there, so many things are gone. There’s no meat at all. There are no oranges – this is Spain, we always have oranges.”
She had started buying some extra supplies over the past three weeks, so has not ventured outside so far.
Locals in Valencia only fully grasped the seriousness of the situation on the cancellation of their annual Fallas Festival, which attracts over one million people to the streets with a mix of fireworks, fire displays and elaborate costumes.
A freelance translator, Iseult is used to working from home but is unsure if the work will continue to be sent her way.
Others who find themselves without a wage are improvising.
“I know of one woman who switched her exercise class to online so that people can keep exercising at home and she can keep earning some money.”
Iseult advised people in Ireland to stock up on goods that they would need if they were stranded in a cabin for a month – sanitary towels, hair dye, comfort snacks to keep up spirits, cooking oil and dried goods and cans – and options for light entertainment such as board games and cards.
“I was guilty of complacency myself in the beginning – there was a lack of cohesion in policy. But I feel very reassured here now. I think it’s the only way.
“It’s shocking to see what’s happening in the UK and in Ireland – that people coming back from Cheltenham [Race Festival] were not forced into quarantine. I think that’s a ticking timebomb.
“It’s shocking to see how the numbers have grown here in Valencia – we had 40 cases, it’s now 500. Spain had 1,000 cases a week ago and it’s shot up to 11,000 – Italy have reached 21,000 and we’re second behind them so it is going to get a lot worse.
“The festival which had a fireworks display every evening was bringing 15,000 people into the city for the last nine nights so that could have caused a lot of damage.”
Living in Spain for the past eleven years, Iseult said she loves her adopted home but returns every August to see her family in Galway.
Speaking by phone on St Patrick’s Day, she said she is grateful for the small things.
She has a balcony that she and her daughter can enjoy some fresh air and light. It’s from here that she joins other Spaniards every evening at 8pm to honour those working in hospitals, supermarkets and pharmacies by banging pots and pans and singing aloud.
They have been told that the lockdown is likely to last a month at least.
“I have a good network, people I can talk to here and in Madrid. My daughter has been much better than I expected. She’s not anxious but is beginning to feel the lack of contact and the lack of exercise. But we’re getting used to it.”
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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