City sporting clubs and councillors are up in arms this week over a planned transition from the current club licensing agreement to an online reservation system this July, with fears that planned high profile matches could be thrown into disarray by public bookings for stag and birthday parties.
The planned standing orders at the Galway City Council June Ordinary Meeting on Monday, June 12 were waived so the topic could be discussed at a matter of urgency. Leading the charge against the move was Cllr McDonnell, whose proposal to waive standing orders to discuss the topic could be described as 'fiery'.
"This is a complete change of policy and a change of policy should be debated here before a letter goes out," argued Cllr McDonnell, adding, "The insurance for Mervue is €20,000, is Galway City Council going to pick up that insurance? Because we are not going to insure people going on a pitch that are not associated, or pay a membership or a fee to the club."
The letter, which was described as 'poorly worded' and 'poor communication', has blindsided clubs and councillors with Cllr John Connolly describing it as "disrespectful to local communities" and gives the illusion that Galway City Council are "making this up as we go along."
"This is a huge shift in policy, one which will affect thousands of people across the city, again I look at the practicality of it. The Galway District League set about 260 games over a weekend in city and county, looking at all the city pitches that we have under this new system you could potentially book the pitches for a stag party, or a birthday party, as whatever you want to do on that pitch," said Cllr Cubbard.
'Poor communication'
While it was confirmed that the July adoption of such a booking system will not in fact be going ahead, Director of Services for Roads & Transport (Operations ), Water Services (Operations ), Recreation & Amenity, Sports Capital, Environment, Patrick Greene, confirmed that the letter had been sent out prematurely and had been poorly communicated, but that an eventual move to an online booking system would be beneficial for measuring capacity.
"Our intention was never to force this on anyone, never, and I stand over that even though the letter that went out was poorly written and poor communication," said Greene.
"I am getting challenged, and I have done since I came into the community directorship about capacity and pitches and the growth in girls' football, which is great to see and I have daughters myself who do it and it is a difficult situation, but in the short term the one thing we could do is to see where there is capacity and how we can maximise it and an online booking system would allow us to do that."
Further discussion needed
While there was considerable backlash to the move, some councillors mentioned seeing the merit of it, with Cllr Keane saying that the current structure means that those wishing to book a pitch in the city need "to go cap in hand to a club" for permission to use a pitch, and Cllr Colette Connolly saying that the debacle had highlighted the "grey areas" that exist when clubs start assuming that public lands "are theirs".
Director Greene confirmed that any move to an online booking system for the city's pitches will be a long and thought-out process, running through multiple committees for fleshing out before it will even be brought to clubs for further development.
"We would absolutely have to engage the clubs because, eventually in the process, there is just no way it can work without them. They have to be part of it, they are the biggest stakeholder in it."
