No room at County Hall inn for homeless or Councillors!

Bradley Bytes – a sort of political column by Dara Bradley

There was justified outcry on social media this past week, after fencing was erected at Galway County Council’s headquarters on Prospect Hill. The metal hoarding blocked off a sheltered area outside the building at County Hall that was used by rough sleepers to shelter from the wind and rain.

The message to the homeless was clear: there’s ‘no room at the inn’ for sleeping rough outside County Galway’s centre of local government and administration.

A sign erected on December 6 suggested that sleeping bags and other bits and bobs, belonging to whoever was unfortunate enough to have to sleep out at the side of the building, were confiscated. The items could be retrieved “by appointment”, the sign added.

Welcome to Galway at Christmas in 2018, where the State builds fences – and not houses – as security, and to deter rough sleepers.

Meanwhile, despite millions of euro being spent years ago on the redevelopment of County Hall, the building could not accommodate a meeting of Ballinasloe Municipal Council earlier this week – because there was no room available.

The Ballinasloe meeting is normally attended by six elected representatives, four Council officials, and two members of the press, yet it could not be accommodated in the main building. That’s because the main Council chamber (which underwent an expensive revamp, too) was set up for a full County Council budget meeting that was scheduled later in the day; while two rooms off the chamber were booked by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael respectively for pre-budget discussions.

And there was no other room in the entire building to accommodate the Ballinasloe meeting. It was held instead in the adjacent Western Hotel. No such comfort for rough sleepers.

*This is a preview only. For more Bradley Bytes, including Fianna Fáil’s amalgamation woes, and a Stroke of luck for FF, see this week’s Galway City Tribune