Picture the typical busking scene. Galway city centre, mid-afternoon, on a crisp, cool, sunny autumn day, and a rock band has set-up stage on the tarmac pedestrian intersection of Cross Street, High Street and Quay Street.

A crowd of more than a hundred people, mostly tourists, gather in a circle, soaking up the atmosphere, with music blaring from the performers.

“Visually, it looks brilliant. Everyone is stopped, looking at them, taking videos and putting it up on their social media. Everybody loves busking. We use it to promote the city. There’s a buzz.

“But it’s affecting business, and it’s affecting jobs. Businesses on Middle Street are affected because nobody can get past the crowd. Or for the businesses right beside the bands, the amplification is too loud,” explained Deputy Mayor of Galway, Councillor Níall McNelis (Lab).

It sums up Galway’s busking conundrum; it’s both positive and negative.

This coming New Year’s Day marks the fifth anniversary of the introduction of busking byelaws that imposed restrictions on busking.

The byelaws, which proved controversial, were approved by two thirds of city councillors, who ushered in the rules, after businesses lobbied about noise pollution and crowds blocking access to retail.

But five years on from their introduction, the day Galway became 2020 European Capital of Culture, the issues persist, and the byelaws are not being enforced – not one fine has been issued for breaches of busking byelaws, according to records released to the Galway City Tribune following a Freedom of Information request.

In the busking scenario above, a regular occurrence, according to Cllr McNelis, a complaint will be lodged at City Hall.

“What usually happens then is a warden will go up and ask the band ‘do you mind turning it down’ or ‘do you mind moving on you’ve been there a long time’. Then every phone that’s ever been invented is suddenly taken out (recording the warden) and the warden is booed out of it.

“They ring the Guards. The Guards come and they say, ‘right lads, you’re blocking the space here, we need to get an ambulance through here’. Again, every mobile phone comes out, and they’re booed,” said Cllr McNelis, a business owner in the Latin Quarter.

Enforcement has been a problem, agreed Mayor of Galway, Councillor Peter Keane (FF), chief architect of the byelaws.

“We passed them on the basis we had received copious representations from people. They were not anti-busking, they wanted to get rid of amplification on the protected streetscape, from Brown Thomas down as far as Jury’s, and only between 10am and 6pm.

“In other words, at five past six, you can rock up with your bongo drums and do what you like, but in the love and honour of god, don’t be at it in the middle of the day, when the women in River Island are trying to serve a customer, or when Paula in O’Flaherty’s pharmacy is looking out her window and there are 200 people looking at a circle act and nobody can get into the pharmacy, or Richie Hartmann (jewellers) or Paul Garavan (Garavan’s Bar) the same way.

“It was pitched then as anti-culture, and anti-arts. It was never, ever meant to be that. It was simply turn down the noise, you don’t need amplification,” explained Mayor Keane.

A spokesperson for the local authority confirmed zero fines have been issued for byelaw offences, and the attitude has almost been ‘softly softly’.

Pictured: Gavin James  busking on Shop Street this Summer to mark the opening of the Galway International Arts Fesival box office.  Photo:Andrew Downes, xposure.