CITY TRIBUNE
TD claims new Garda HQ in Galway is under-resourced
A Galway TD has said the new Garda regional HQ building opposite GMIT is ‘hollow’ because of a lack of officers available to staff it.
Deputy Anne Rabbitte (FF) said the West of Ireland is being neglected in allocations of new Garda recruits.
She slammed the Government’s approach to Garda allocations as figures from the Department of Justice revealed that County Galway received just 36 new Garda recruits between January 2015 and January 2019.
“I have been calling for an increase in our Garda force for some time. This Fine Gael Government has abandoned rural Ireland. The effects of their policies have a detrimental effect on my constituency as our Garda force is drip-fed new Garda personnel over the past four years.
“In rural Ireland, people can feel vulnerable and their concerns increase when they do not notice a Garda presence in the area,” said Deputy Rabbitte.
The TD for Galway East said as a member of the County Joint Policing Committee (JPC), she was aware of the dearth of Gardaí in the Galway Division.
“To be fair to the Chief Superintendent, Tom Curley, at every JPC that I have attended in the last five years, as a TD and as a councillor, he brings up the lack of Gardaí at every quarterly meeting – the man is operating on an absolute shoestring.
“The figures make for alarming reading. Only 36 new recruits have been assigned to the Galway Division since 2015. This is far from good enough,” she said.
Deputy Rabbitte said there was a total of 789 Garda recruits who passed out of Templemore in 2018 – and only 16 of those were allocated to Galway.
“I know there is a lot going on in Dublin and there has to be a focus there, but there also has to be a regional balance.
“This Government doesn’t understand anything that goes on beyond the Pale,” said Deputy Rabbitte.
Due to the lack of bodies, Deputy Rabbitte said a Garda stationed in Portumna was expected to cover everywhere from ‘Banagher Bridge out to the sea in Kinvara’ – something she said was unacceptable.
Furthermore, she said the new Divisional Headquarters at Murrough in Galway City was a ‘great investment’, but the four-storey building was ‘hollow’ due to the lack of Gardaí available to staff it.
“There have been great specialist units set up there like the Protective Services Unit [for the victims of sexual assault], but they pull sergeants and Gardaí into work in those and they’re not being replaced,” said Deputy Rabbitte.
This was a problem right along the Western seaboard and something that required the immediate attention of the Minister for Justice, she continued.
“There is a major lack of resources in the Western region. Despite having a new Divisional Headquarters in Galway, we have no Garda dog unit and low Garda levels. In the wider region, Mayo has only received 18 new recruits since 2015, and in Roscommon-Longford, only 18 were assigned.
“I will be raising my concerns with the Minister for Justice to ensure the western region gets its fair share of security resources,” said Deputy Rabbitte.
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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