With hours of her election as Galway’s First Citizen on Friday, Mayor Clodagh Higgins had thrown herself into the role with gusto — commencing a year that she hopes will enable her to highlight all the great work that is being undertaken in communities right across the city.
Mayor Higgins was elected the ninth female Mayor of Galway City at the City Council AGM held in the Ardilaun Hotel last Friday. She told the Galway Advertiser this week that she is excited by the possibility of the role, especially as it will help promote all that is good about this city.
“The role of the Mayor to attend at events is a hectic schedule, but I believe that this enables the great community work that is being undertaken in Galway City to be highlighted,” she said.
Four years ago, Cllr Higgins was just about to enter politics and never envisaged that in such a short space of time, she would be elected Mayor.
“When I was deemed elected, it was quite an emotional moment. This is a great honour for me and my family and the party. When I entered politics four years ago, I never envisaged that I would be elected to this role in my first term, so I am delighted and enthused by the possibilities of it all. I am in politics a short while so to be given the opportunity to become Mayor is such an honour and one that I won’t take for granted.
“It is great to be the ninth female Mayor. And to have two female Mayors back to back is wonderful considering that the first female Mayor was only in the mid-seventies.
“It is important to see women serving in leadership roles because it will encourage the younger generation to strive to do just that. It was Serena Williams who said that the success of every women should be the inspiration of another. You can’t see, you can’t be.”
Mayor Higgins attended her first events on Saturday, enabling several charities to showcase their activities.
“I got stuck in straightaway and I attended seveeral events over the weekend. The diary is filling up fast and it is a honour to see the great community work that goes on.
Mayor Higgins told the Advertiser that she is building her year in office on five key pillars — housing, transport, community, business and tourism.
“We need more housing to be delivered and I want to be able to work with the Council to audit and identify public sites within our city that would be suitable for housing.
“And of course, if we are to get extra housing, we need to have the proper water infrastructure in place. It is really important that we get this in places like Merlin Park so as to develop the site at Ardaun to open up space for housing.
“A crucial part in realising the increase in housing will be the City Development Plan which is to come before us in July.
On the transport front, Mayor Higgins will also be in office when the decision on the future of the Galway City Ring Road will be made.
“We have a reputation for traffic gridlock and the ring road is a divisive issue, but I have always been in support of it and I make no apologies for that. We need to deliver it because the city is choked and the city has been designed with all the housing on the westside and jobs on the eastside. So the ring road is really important. I have already spoken to Tanaiste Varadkar and he is very supportive of the project.
“I want to see a conclusion of all legal challenges to the project and to see it commence at pace on the delivery of it for Galway.”
“I am committed to positively promoting Galway and I look forward with all the stakeholders during my time to showcase all that Galway has to offer. We know that the city has issues, but we are no different from other cities in this regard.
“Another aspect that I am really focused on in my term is the engagement of youth in the city. In order to do that, we need to have the proper facilities. On the sporting front, I want to see the projects funded by the Sports Captital Partnership which we announced earlier in the year, come to fruition. Such as the delivery of a rugby pitch on the west side of the city. There is so much great work going on all over the city and I hope that I will be able to create awareness of this through my role as Mayor,” she said.
“This is what i hope to achieve, to get all the positive news stories out into the public domain,” she concluded.
At Friday’s meeting, the Deputy Mayor role went to Cllr Mike Cubbard who is no stranger to the Mayoral chain having held it for two successive years during lockdown.
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