Bradley Bytes – a sort of political column with Dara Bradley

The boom is back and it’s getting boomier.

How else do you explain how councillors voted, almost unanimously, to apply for a €45.5m loan to buy a new headquarters for Galway City Council?

The total capital outlay will be €56.5 million, with annual loan repayments of up to €2m for 30 years.

The Chief Executive, Brendan McGrath, publicly acknowledged the developer for charging them 2021 prices for a transaction that isn’t due to be completed until later this year. A bargain, in other words.

And there was a rake of reasons given for why leaving College Road and buying Crown Square was a good idea.

But, essentially, the City Council management has solved a problem nobody realised existed. When was the last time you heard anyone complaining down at the Crane Bar, or at Pearse Stadium, or at the Arts Festival Big Top, or at Ballybrit Racecourse, or at Blackrock Diving Tower, that what Galway really needs is a new City Hall? Never.

Not one person on the streets of Galway wants this; certainly not the ratepayers or taxpayers, who will ultimately pick up the tab. Even the elected members don’t particularly want it, especially when they know deep down that the money could be used on real, tangible things like footpaths or playgrounds for their constituents.

True, the BER rating on the existing City Hall, built in the 1980s and extended 20 years ago, is not as green as the new build they plan to buy.

And it would be preferable for the organisation to be based in one location, rather than renting out several offices to accommodate the spillover of staff. But this is a Celtic Tiger style proposal, tabled as economic storm clouds gather and when there are far greater needs that should be prioritised.

The other signal that the boom is back, came in an email from Chief Executive Brendan McGrath, informing councillors that in future they should all go on trips abroad!

In the email copied to all councillors, Mr McGrath relayed a Corporate Policy Group discussion about twinning and sister city arrangements.

“During the discussion, there was a strong sense that all elected councillors should receive the opportunity over the life of a Council to visit our most proactive sister cities/twinning partners,” he said.

A junkets charter by any other name, which, he said, would be discussed in more detail in the autumn. They don’t have to wait ’til then for the trips abroad, though. Oh no.

Mr McGrath told councillors that, this summer, for the Mayor of Galway’s annual jaunt to Chicago/Milwaukee, “it is proposed that three other members of the City Council will accompany the Mayor”.

So that’s four city councillors (plus officials) in total that City Hall plans to send to represent Galway Stateside from August 14-23, taking in Chicago and Milwaukee Irish Fest.

Mr McGrath said that if more than three councillors volunteered to go, Mayor Clodagh Higgins would draw lots, to determine the lucky trio who will accompany her on the delegation abroad.

Oh the boom is back, baby!

(Photo: City Council CE Brendan McGrath told councillors that, during a Corporate Policy Group discussion, ‘there was a strong sense that elected councillors should receive the opportunity over the life of a Council to visit our most proactive sister cities/twinning partners’)

This is a shortened preview version of this article. For more Bradley Bytes, see the July 29 edition of the Galway City Tribune. You can buy a digital edition HERE.