News
Galway water rights handover could be jobs disaster
The City Manager has been asked not to sign over control over the local authority’s water network to the newly-established Irish Water, after it emerged the Council will have no say whatsoever on pricing and repairs.
The impending changeover has been branded “disastrous” by one councillor, who warned it could cost hundreds of jobs in the hospitality and leisure sectors, as well as rising costs for households.
Under the Government’s new ‘Service Level Agreement’ with the local authority, pricing for domestic and commercial customers will be controlled by the by the Commission for Energy Regulation, while reports for leaks and service interruptions will be handled by a central call centre in Limerick.
The City Manager and his senior officials are understood to have serious reservations and concerns about Environment Minister Phil Hogan’s new legislation – it will have an impact across Council departments, including finance and property.
Brendan McGrath is due to make a report to councillors at a meeting today (Monday) outlining the impact the changeover will have and is expected to allow councillors vote on the issue.
Cllr Michael Crowe – Chair of the Council’s Transport and infrastructure Committee – has proposed (and received backing from other councillors) that the Manager not sign the Service Level Agreement (SLA), despite the Minister holding the executive power to introduce the change.
The SLA is supposed to be signed later this month – the issue is expected to cause a heated debate in the Council Chamber next week.
Ironically, Irish Water is headed by the former Galway City Manager John Tierney.
“There are serious questions to be answered regarding the transfer of the city’s water supply over to Irish Water. For example, when a there is a problem like a burst and a member of the public wants to report it, they will have to ring Irish Water and not City Hall. Imagine!
“When repairs need to be done, Irish Water will have to give approval to Galway City Council before the works can be carried out. Furthermore, and this is my deepest concern, the price of water will be decided by the Energy Regulator and not by the Council in our Budget (until now, commercial water charges have been set by local authorities).
“It will work the same as electricity and gas do now. The regulator decides and that’s it. No appeal, no direct say, end of story. Effectively, some guy in an office in Dublin will decide on how much our water will be. It is absolute madness.
“We have seen through the rise of gas and electricity costs what centralising power to an office in Dublin does. It results in higher prices for everyone.
“This whole rush to ram this through and hand everything over to Irish Water is nonsense. We should do all we can to stop this. Since our difficulties with cryptosporidium we have done enormous work and now have water that is second-to-none in the country. And now after all this, the Government has decided to take our water out of our control and hand it over to an office in Dublin.
“Every water user in Galway should now understand that this will result in higher prices. The big users such as hotels, leisure centres, sports clubs etc will all see their costs rise and subsequently the prices for their customers will rise,” said Cllr Crowe.
A spokesperson for the City Council said the issue is under ongoing discussion between the City and County Managers’ Association and the Water Services Transition Office.
“The Manager is proactively and strongly looking after issues for a seamless provision of water. Collectively, as Managers (around the country), they are engaging with Irish Water.
“The transition to Irish Water is a dynamic process which is ongoing, for example, the City Manager received the latest draft SLA on Thursday morning, which he will be considering and bringing before councillors on Monday,” said the spokesperson.
He said that repairs will be fixed by customers phoning the Irish Water call centre, which will then dispatch a crew.
Significant state investment is required to address ‘shocking’ inequalities that leave cancer patients in the West at greater risk of succumbing to the disease.
A meeting of Regional Health Forum West heard that survival rates for breast, lung and colorectal cancers than the national average, and with the most deprived quintile of the population, the West’s residents faced poorer outcomes from a cancer diagnosis.
For breast cancer patients, the five-year survival rate was 80% in the West versus 85% nationally; for lung cancer patients it was 16.7% in the west against a 19.5% national survival rate; and in the West’s colorectal cancer patients, there was a 62.6% survival rate where the national average was 63.1%.
These startling statistics were provided in answer to a question from Ballinasloe-based Cllr Evelyn Parsons (Ind) who said it was yet another reminder that cancer treatment infrastructure in the West was in dire need of improvement.
“The situation is pretty stark. In the Western Regional Health Forum area, we have the highest incidence of deprivation and the highest health inequalities because of that – we have the highest incidences of cancer nationally because of that,” said Cllr Parsons, who is also a general practitioner.
In details provided by CEO of Saolta Health Care Group, which operates Galway’s hospitals, it was stated that a number of factors were impacting on patient outcomes.
Get the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now, or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie. You can also download our Connacht Tribune App from Apple’s App Store or get the Android Version from Google Play.
On the eve of completing his 150th marathon, an odyssey that has taken him across 53 countries, Loughrea’s Marathon Man has announced that he is planning to hang up his running shoes.
But not before Jarlath Fitzgerald completes another ten races, making it 160 marathons on the occasion of his 60th birthday.
“I want to draw the line in 2026. I turn 57 in October and when I reach 60 it’s the finishing line. The longer races are taking it out of me. I did 20 miles there two weeks ago and didn’t feel good. It’s getting harder,” he reveals.
“I’ve arthritis in both hips and there’s wear and tear in the knees.”
We speak as he is about to head out for a run before his shift in Supervalu Loughrea. Despite his physical complaints, he still clocks up 30 miles every second week and generally runs four days a week.
Jarlath receives injections to his left hip to keep the pain at bay while running on the road.
To give his joints a break, during the winter he runs cross country and often does a five-mile trek around Kylebrack Wood.
He is planning on running his 150th marathon in Cork on June 4, where a group of 20 made up of work colleagues, friends and running mates from Loughrea Athletics Club will join him.
Some are doing the 10k, others are doing the half marathon, but all will be there on the finishing line to cheer him on in the phenomenal achievement.
Get the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now, or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie. You can also download our Connacht Tribune App from Apple’s App Store or get the Android Version from Google Play.
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.”
Families queue up for school’s offer of free house
West has lower cancer survival rates than rest
Galway minors continue to lay waste to all opponents
Gardaí and IFA issue a joint appeal on summer road safety
Marathon Man plans to call a halt – but not before he hits 160 races
