CITY TRIBUNE
NUIG ‘charm offensive’ failed to quell Irish language controversy
Bradley Bytes – a sort of political column with Dara Bradley
President of NUI Galway Professor Ciarán Ó hÓgartaigh was not happy with a story carried in the Galway City Tribune last Friday week confirming the university had removed the requirement for admin staff to have a competency in the Irish language.
We know he was not happy because he went on RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta and said so. He said it was only ‘half of the story’, and the full story was that NUIG would be publishing a new Irish strategy next month.
As Professor Ó hÓgartaigh is a fan of full disclosure, here’s a little insight into how that story came to light, and why it took so long.
The decision to get rid of the Irish language requirement for Grade 1-3 administrative workers was made at a meeting of the Governing Body in April 2020.
Minutes of the meetings are publicly available. To get them, you must submit a Freedom of Information request, which is what this newspaper did last August.
A decision was due back on September 4. That deadline was extended to September 10, due to annual leave within a particular department in NUIG.
On September 9, NUIG released the minutes of its March and April Governing Body meetings.
A number of the 15 pages of the April meeting’s minutes were redacted; huge chunks of information completely blacked out.
Information relevant to Irish language policy was redacted because the decision-maker in NUIG deemed it was “commercially sensitive”, under Section 36 of the FOI Act.
An internal appeal of this decision was applied for on September 10. This meant another person in NUIG had a “fresh independent” review of the initial request.
On November 3, a solicitor in NUIG who handled the appeal basically upheld the original decision to release heavily redacted minutes. Paragraphs in which the Irish language requirement was dealt with remained redacted.
This newspaper then appealed to the Office of Information Commission (OIC). Following intervention by OIC, which is an independent adjudicator, NUIG on April 6 of this year – nearly 10 months to the day after the original request was made – responded with an email from Professor Ó hÓgartaigh’s office with mostly un-redacted minutes attached.
The following week, a request for comment about the new Irish language requirement rule was submitted to NUIG. A statement was issued in response 12 days later.
The statement – presumably signed off by senior management – made no reference to a new Irish strategy launch next month. That new strategy was not mentioned in the Governing Body minutes either.
It was only flagged by Professor Ó hÓgartaigh in interviews last week on TG4 and RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta where he went on a charm offensive, and attempted to downplay the Tribune story.
He argued that removing the Irish requirement was a positive step. It may well be. But why not say so, publicly, a year ago, when the decision was made?
Meanwhile, as the controversy raged and Gaeilgeoirí questioned the logic of NUIG abandoning the Irish requirement, a leak of a ‘positive’ story made its way into Tuairisc.ie.
(Photo: NUIG President Professor Ciarán Ó hÓgartaigh was not happy when this paper revealed that the university had removed the requirement for admin staff to have a competency in the Irish language.)
For more Bradley Bytes, see this week’s Galway City Tribune. You can buy a digital edition HERE.
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.
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
