Bradley Bytes – A sort of political column by Dara Bradley

You’d almost admire the neck with which Galway City Council offers retrospective justification for its ill-thought-out multi-million-euro move to Crown Square.

The local authority’s latest ‘evidence’ to support its purchase of a new headquarters in Mervue, was contained in propaganda issued last week.

It was all part of a media charm offensive – that included guided tours for reporters of the building shell – ahead of another crucial vote by councillors to approve more borrowing last Monday.

An unknown chunk of that new €60m loan will fit out the building the Council purchased in 2022, also with borrowed money to be repaid by its long-suffering citizens.

The press release said: “The need for new civic offices was identified in a Local Government Audit Service 2017 Value for Money Report, which found that City Hall was over-capacity compared to other local authorities, at 2017 staffing levels – which have since increased.”

Let’s leave aside, for now, a report in last week’s Galway City Tribune, in which trade union Fórsa claimed the new offices won’t be big enough to accommodate the Council’s expanding workforce.

You’d have to wonder why this 2017 Value for Money report wasn’t shared with the public or councillors immediately before they voted to borrow €45.5m to buy the building three years ago.

It was not mentioned during the Monday, July 2022 meeting when councillors approved the loan; nor was it contained in a report ‘Office Accommodation Proposals’, circulated to councillors on the Friday before that meeting.

Perhaps it was referenced at individual meetings that the then Chief Executive Brendan McGrath had with each councillor ahead of that vote, which, we know through Freedom of Information (FOI), were not minuted.

Imagine some poor civil servant was tasked with trawling through official documents and reports. And imagine they stumbled across something from eight years ago – and from five years before the vote to approve the loan to buy the building – which the Council has now introduced for the first time in public discourse,  to portray that moving out of College Road was the plan all along, since 2017?

Sorry now, that might wash with naïve councillors who’d cling to anything to justify their decisions, but the public will not tolerate rewriting history.

The facts are that councillors were given a report recommending the purchase of Crown Square on Friday July 8. Three days later, they approved a loan that saddled Galway’s citizens with 30 years of debt, costing €1.6m in yearly repayments for a building that has since lost €8m in value.

And they’ll pay for it through increased property tax, increased commercial rates and increased rent on social housing.

The Council didn’t have public consultation and did not invite public Expressions of Interest to see what other buildings were out there before it purchased Crown.

Last Monday, it doubled down on that decision, by approving another loan, which will cost €93m, or €3.1m per annum for 30 years.

That the Council bundled the new HQ’s fit-out costs in with other infrastructure projects – sweeteners to make the decision more palatable – was a cynical act by an organisation that is losing trust of the people it is employed to serve.

Pictured: An image of the Council Chamber sent out as part of Galway City Council’s charm offensive last week.