Labour Cllr Tom Costello was on the end of a verbal roasting from his former party colleague Cllr Catherine Connolly this week, over his support for two controversial rezonings.
At Monday’s city council meeting, two rezonings were proposed by Independent Cllr Declan McDonnell and seconded by Cllr Costello.
One proposal sought to rezone the Riverside Commercial Estate and lands in the vicinity of the Trapper’s Inn, Tuam Road, from industrial to commercial. The other sought to rezone lands from residential to commercial at the former Corrib Great Southern Hotel, Dublin Road.
Both were bitterly opposed by city manager Joe MacGrath who told councillors that the “variation process should only be used for meritorious proposals” and that there was “no merit” in the two before him.
Cllr Daniel Callanan said there was enough commercially zoned land in the city but that in the current economic climate, people were struggling to find tenants to fill the already existing, but still vacant, offices around town.
Independent Cllr Catherine Connolly was also opposed to the rezonings. However she reserved her sharpest criticism for her former party and Cllr Costello.
“This is the first occasion that I have had to speak out in public against my former party,” she told the meeting. “The hypocrisy of the Labour party to be talking about an integrated transport system and then amending the city development plan like this. It saddens me that Cllr Costello is aligning himself with former PDs. This proposal is driven by greed and will only enrich developers.”
After this, Cllr McDonnell agreed to withdraw the proposals and the matter came to a close.
