Top surgeon warns ring road will be a danger to public health

From this week’s Galway City Tribune – One of the top surgeons in the country has warned that the proposed Galway City Ring Road will cause “the destruction of the city”, with noise and air pollution leading to increased stress, heart disease and asthma.

Professor Michael Kerin, a breast cancer specialist and Chair of Surgery at NUI Galway, told the An Bord Pleanála oral hearing into the ring road this week that the €650 million scheme will impact on the overall health and wellbeing of the greater population of the city.

He told the hearing that air pollution alone accounted for more than four million deaths globally each year and that instead of reducing our dependence on cars, this motorway would be increasing it.

Prof Kerin, whose home is one of those affected by the road’s route – added that Galway already has a poor record for respiratory disease.

He said studies showed that reducing air and noise pollution increased psychological and physical wellbeing and he believed that the building of the N6 ring road would be the “destruction of the city”.

“World Health Organisation guidelines are here for Galway,” he said. The ring road would not reduce pollution and improve air quality, but would “sunder communities, destroy areas” and increase the burden of psychological stress, heart disease, asthma and impact of noise, Prof Kerin said at the final day of the oral hearing on Wednesday.
This is a shortened preview version of this article. To read coverage of the ring road oral hearing across six pages – from home and landowners’ objections to the Compulsory Purchase Order process, to the responses from the project team – see this week’s Galway City Tribune. You can buy a digital edition HERE.