A well-known community activist on a Galway City Council committee has apologised for using racist language during a meeting.

Derrick Hambleton, Galway City Community Network representative on the Planning Strategic Policy Committee, said he was wrong to use the phrase “n***er in the woodpile” at a meeting of the SPC.

As a community member of the SPC, Mr Hambleton represents groups with people of many ethnic backgrounds, including black members who live in Galway.

In a public apology sent to the chairperson of the SPC, Councillor Peter Keane, and copied to Galway City Tribune, Mr Hambleton said he was “wrong” to use the “N” word which was “capable of causing offence”.

Mr Hambleton, a vocal activist with An Taisce and on planning matters, used the phrase during an SPC meeting on September 5.

Though it is understood nobody passed comment about his use of the N word at the time, a number of SPC members contacted the Tribune to complain.

In response to queries from this newspaper, Mr Hambleton confirmed he used the term during discussion of Census 2022 population figures and to describe the “current unacceptable position of Ardaun”, a new town planned for 20 years that has not had a house built yet.

In a statement, Mr Hambleton cited Wikipedia to explain the figure of speech which originated in America and meant, “some fact of considerable importance that is not disclosed – something suspicious or wrong”.
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