CITY TRIBUNE
New Galway clinic for male domestic abuse victims
An organisation that provides aid for men suffering from domestic abuse is introducing a monthly outreach clinic in Galway City.
Amen Support Services’ outreach clinic programme will commence on Tuesday, October 10 at Westside Resource Centre, Seamus Quirke Road.
This will be the first time Amen will be in a position to provide support in person to male victims of domestic abuse in the Galway area.
Information will be provided free of charge on a one-to-one person basis in relation to their rights on family issues such as domestic abuse, guardianship, access, maintenance, custody, separation etc.
Manager of Amen Niamh Farrell has been working for the charity for ten years and she says that the new service will offer an additional route for victims to get help.
“The problem with having only the helpline is that it puts certain people off ringing us because they assume that a service that’s based a couple of hundred miles away can’t help them.
“We would have a good few clients ringing from Galway and this is a step further for them. It will give them more of a connection with us if they can meet somebody face to face.
“The hope is as well that it will encourage more people to come forward who currently are put off by the fact that our base is in Meath,” Niamh added.
Recently, there have been advertisements on the radio and the television to encourage victims of domestic abuse to come forward but there is still a stigma surrounding abuse against men.
“Much of it is around misinformation and lack of understanding of the issue so if we can get into communities and encourage people to break down that stigma then hopefully the people will come forward,” Niamh said.
Niamh admits that another problem for male sufferers of domestic abuse has been the lack of awareness surrounding the services on offer to them.
“Of course, first they have to identify with themselves the need for support whatever the case may be but even when they do that, they just assume that there are no services for them because they only ever hear about services for women.
“If they do identify as a victim and then realise that there are supports available for them then it says: ‘Well it must be okay to look for help because there are services there’,” Niamh said.
The problem with many charities is a lack of manpower and funding available to them and Niamh says that Amen is no different in that regard.
“Up until this year we only had three full-time staff and we now have four full time staff and four part-time staff.
“We certainly know that we are not reaching the masses of people that we could be reaching had we more physical people but hopefully these outreach clinics are a start,” Niamh added.
In the ten years that Niamh has been working at Amen, this is the first year that she has seen brand-new additional funding for projects like the outreach clinics and she hopes this support can continue.
“If we can go to Galway and we can encourage people to come to the clinics then we can go back to funders and say look there are a lot more services needed in Galway, for example, or wherever, and look for additional funding to address the needs of those people,” she said.
Something Niamh has noticed recently is that some callers seem to be of a younger age, which can actually be a positive thing in terms of finding a solution.
“It’s good to see because they can be helped at an earlier stage in the problem, if they come to us in their 20s they may not have bought a house with their partner or they may not be married to this person at that time so it’s a different solution.”
■ For further information or to make an appointment, contact the Amen helpline on 0818 222240.
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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