Is City Hall really prepared for Galway 2020 year of culture?

Bradley Bytes – A sort of Political Column with Dara Bradley 

We’re regularly told how big a deal Galway’s European Capital of Culture designation is next year. And in fairness, it is. But how seriously is it being taken by City Hall?

Galway City Council certainly gave the air of a local authority ramping up preparations for 2020 earlier this year, when it told this newspaper that it had established an ‘operational liaison group’ in November 2018.

This group, the Council said, comprised senior management which met regularly to discuss plans for 2020.

Its primary function was to identify areas, outside of direct funding, where Council resources will be needed to be directed during 2020. It planned things like traffic, street cleaning, event licences, staff etcetera.

As well as co-ordinating internal departments within the Council, we were told it would liaise with Galway 2020 – the company set up to deliver the European Capital of Culture programme – and outside agencies, such as Gardaí and Fire Brigade.

What a great idea . . . in theory. The reality is somewhat different, however. The Council said the group was meeting every six to eight weeks and would probably meet more regularly as 2020 approached.

Again, it sounded great, but it has now emerged – following a Freedom of Information (FOI) request from this newspaper – that the group only met twice in the 12 months to October of this year.

Not a meeting every six weeks, but one meeting every six months, according to the records.

You’d expect that those two meetings would be jam-packed with information, and loads of really important business was conducted at them but we don’t know because nobody took any minutes of the meetings and there was no agenda for either. Apart from a slide show with a brief description of Galway 2020, no documents pertaining to the meetings exist.

It doesn’t inspire confidence that the city is prepared for the year ahead, now does it?

For more Bytes on the Mayor’s Christmas Party; musical chairs at the JPC; Anne Rabbitte and RTÉ; and FG Councillors finding peace  – with each other.