Residents voice fears over running of centre

Representatives of the Ballinfoile Mór Neighbourhood Centre Action Group staged a protest outside City Hall to highlight their wish to have the centre maintained as a public facility.

More than 2,100 people have already signed a petition asking Galway City Council to ensure the Ballinfoile/Castlegar Neighbourhood Centre continues to serve local needs as a publicly-owned facility.

The issue – which has been on the agenda of the City Council for the last three monthly meetings – is finally expected to be voted upon by councillors on March 14.

Brendan Smith, a member of the action group, said: “Amicable discussions have taken place recently with City Council officials and a number of our key concerns over peak hours, community representation on a board of management, discounted rates and prioritising jobs in the centre for local people, as well as an absolute guarantee that there will be no privatisation of the Ballinfoile/Castlegar Neighbourhood and Sports Centre, have been acceded too.

“However, our focus is still to keep the facility under local government management in association with the local community as well as to ensure that its annual Council budget is not reduced.

“Hence we will continue to campaign on these demands and a public meeting is being planned to discuss the proposals from the Council officials and associated costings of the centre once they are finalised after further consultations.

“We have fought for 30 years for this indoor community complex. We owe it to those who stood with us over many decades; to those thousands of people who signed our recent door-to-door petition and to future generations not yet born to ensure that the centre will always serve, be owned, managed and used by the local people,” said Mr Smith.

Residents are calling on Galway City Council to maintain the newly-built centre on the Headford Road in public ownership and ensure that at least half of an oversight body running it is made up of local residents.

This would ring-fence peak hours at lower rates for community groups at the sports and neighbourhood facility, explained Brendan Smith.

“The key thing is public ownership. If it goes to an outside group, it would be a slippery slope to privatisation. We don’t want to see our community centre turned into a leisure centre for outside interests,” he exclaimed.

“We’ve fought a long, long campaign for this facility – probably the longest campaign in modern times for this type of community facility – and we’re not going to give up at the final hurdle.

“It’s a brilliant centre – congratulations to the Council for building it after 30 years – but after getting it, we don’t want to lose it on the day and the period it opens.”

Last September Mr McGrath confirmed the Government had agreed to allow Galway City Council to break the local government jobs embargo in order to hire staff for the centre.

The annual budget then set aside €300,000 for the operation of Knocknacarra and Ballinfoile community centres, but this allocation does not guarantee they will be run publicly as it was half of what is required for Council staff to operate them seven days a week, Mr McGrath told councillors in November.

He stated he would present a plan to councillors on running them as social economic enterprises which would give access to community groups at reasonable rates and be run in accordance with policies set by an oversight group made up of locals, councillors and officials.

But locals fear this “public-private partnership” could mean privatisation sooner or later to the detriment of the local community as profit would take priority over social needs.

“If this happens, residents will be priced out of usage of a much needed multi-purpose community and sports facility,” said Mr Smith.