CITY TRIBUNE
Galway Rape Crisis Centre plans move to new building
A visitor to the Galway Rape Crisis Centre once remarked to its Executive Director, Cathy Connolly, that he didn’t like its location, tucked away in a corner of the Forster Court estate.
The well-known Galway sportsman, who was helping the charity with a project, felt it was ‘like you’re hiding away’.
Ms Connolly, while very grateful to COPE Galway for allowing GRCC to base itself there for the past seven-plus years, understood what he meant.
“It all ties in with the shame and the guilt around sexual violence,” she said, while chatting from a physical distance at the Centre.
But the Centre will be moving to a much more public and prominent position in Galway City, conditional on planning permission being granted by Galway City Council in July.
It’s a homecoming of sorts because the Galway Rape Crisis Centre is returning to its roots at Claddagh Quay, overlooking the Claddagh Basin opposite Long Walk.
The organisation has lodged a planning application to knock and rebuild a three-bedroom house it owns beside the Fire Station and Judo Club on the western side of the quay, which it outgrew before moving to Forster Court.
“We can’t pretend it’s (sexual violence) not happening but we are very conscious of people’s privacy,” said Ms Connolly when asked about the increased visibility of the planned new purpose-built centre for clients and 30-strong staff, including counsellors.
“Our core service is counselling victims or survivors of rape and sexual violence and abuse. There’ll be no problem with privacy. No big sign outside, clients will be let in discreetly; there’ll be a side-entrance if anyone wants to use it, and we wouldn’t let people out if they’re upset anyway. We had 4,000 appointments last year; they’re not coming in throngs, we can spread it out over five days,” she said.
GRCC was founded in 1984 by a group of Galway women concerned about the lack of services for survivors of sexual abuse and rape.
It was initially based at Mary Street, and subsequently Claddagh, and now its current base adjacent to the former Magdalen Laundry building.
“COPE has very kindly let us stay here for as long as we need to. We’re very grateful for the support and we’re looking forward to moving because they need the building. We are here until we have our new home built,” said Ms Connolly.
The project will cost about €1.3 million and GRCC already has a head-start.
“We have about €250,000 or €300,000 of it from Lifes2good Foundation, James and Maria Murphy, who founded it, and their CEO Maurice McQuillan, from Athenry, have been very good to us. We basically have to fundraise €1 million plus. It really is the people of Galway who we’ll be relying on,” she said.
Mark Flanagan, MD of the electrical and mechanical engineering Kirby Group, will supply services without charge when building starts.
Eugene Mulcaire and Owen Coughlan of urbanARQ Architects have designed the new three-storey building, also free of charge. “It’s sympathetic to the surroundings,” said Ms Connolly.
“The building is needed to house the service. We own the site. We’re knocking the building and trying to build a brand-new purpose-built building to house a counselling service. We operate regular hours, we’re quiet, it won’t put anybody out, it’s respectful of the neighbourhood. We’re just putting a better building in,” she said.
GRCC is the second busiest in the country after Dublin, and supports survivors from all over Galway, as well as North Clare and South Roscommon. It has outreach services in Ballinasloe, Oughterard and Gort.
“We’re spreading our tentacles but we want a home base,” she said. “I think a fresh, clean, bright purpose-built place where counsellors could make it our own would be good for survivors. It’s there forever then, belonging to the people of Galway.”
Ms Connolly, who has already contacted Claddagh residents and shared the plans with neighbours, said the beautiful setting would be uplifting for clients.
“We deal a lot with historical abuse. I was on the radio one day and this man came to the door afterwards and said ‘I heard you on the radio, it’s taken me fifty-something years to get the courage to come in’. He had been abused as a young lad. A lot of the historical abuse is people my age, who didn’t deal with it and it’s taken forty or fifty years to come in and they’re getting counselling.
“All they’re doing is coming in to talk; it’s nothing that anyone should be afraid of. We’re run as a professional service and we want a professional purpose-built building that really suits the clients.
“These are sons and daughters of Galway people – they’re not from out of space, they’re people’s brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, grannies, mums and dads,” she added.
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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