The Labour Party has strongly criticised Independent councillor Catherine Connolly for voting with the right wing parties in order to pass the 2011 Galway City Council Budget.
Labour’s Cllr Billy Cameron said he was amazed that Cllr Connolly did not support Labour’s budgetary proposals at Monday’s city council meeting, especially as it had provided for substantial increases in housing maintenance funds - an issue Cllr Connolly has focused on strongly on over the last decade.
The Labour budget proposals called for an extra €150,000 for work on long term vacant housing units, increased the housing maintenance fund by €100,000, and provided €100,00 for disabled people’s grants for work on their homes.
“All these issues are ones Cllr Connolly has also campaigned on, yet she voted with the right wing parties in City Hall for a budget that contained none of these increases,” said Cllr Cameron. “We were also going to provide fencing for along the Siobhan McKenna Road and had budgeted for €25,000 for the community park in Shantalla, where she is from, and she still did not support us.”
Cllr Cameron has accused Cllr Connolly of “hypocrisy of the highest order” and has questioned her approach to council budgets.
“Catherine Connolly made criticism of our figures but the question I would pose to her is that since 1999, what figures has she ever produced for a city council budget or does she even partake in the budgetary process at all?” he asked. “Politics is not just about ranting on different causes, it’s about providing solutions.”
