New Mayor vows to aim for openness at City Hall

Controversial City Councillor Pádraig Conneely (FG) warned officials that he would continue to strive for “transparency and accountability” at City Hall after he was elected Mayor of Galway for the second time in five years last night.

The pact between Fine Gael, Fianna Fail, and the former PD members of the local authority held firm in the fifth and final year of the Council to see Cllr Conneely defeat Cllr Colette Connolly (Labour) by nine votes to five at City Hall.

Tensions among the ruling pact in relation to Cllr Conneely’s antagonistic style, which surfaced five months ago, were ironed out well in advance of the meeting to ensure he will be the Mayor of Galway in the run-up to next year’s local elections.

“Regardless of what people say or think, we are honourable,” he told last night’s local authority meeting. “We, as a group, signed a five year pact and every member of the pact has honoured it since 2009. Honour is something that everyone has on this pact, even though honour is a word that’s maybe not used too often in politics.”

During his term of office, Cllr Conneely said he would focus on Galway emigrants overseas and his aim over the year was to remind them that they were not “out of mind, even if they were out of sight”.

He intends to forge links with the city of Menlo Park in California, which was founded by two Oliver brothers from Menlo who left Ireland to start new lives in the United States in the 1840s.

Mayor Conneely said he would work with the new City Manager, Brendan McGrath, on a ‘Bring Them Home’ programme for Irish people overseas who had not done well after emigrating.

He urged the City Manager to get out to meet the “plain people” of Galway and he had a special welcome for representatives of the non-national community who were invited to City Hall for the election of the new Mayor.

“I also hope we can learn from the mistakes of the past and how, at times, the City Council became disconnected from its people,” he said.

“At the end of the day, Galway City Council and business people share a common purpose. The business community and the local authority are inter-reliant. Neither will succeed if the other fails.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Sentinel.