The Galway City Council has failed to implement its own anti-racism motion which councillors unanimously approved two years’ ago.
The matter was raised by Green Party councillor Niall Murphy at the local authority’s first full meeting of 2024 on Monday this week. Councillors were gathered to vote on the latest six-year Local Economic and Community Plan, which they unanimously approved.
“The motion we passed in October 2022 should have been included in the LECP,” said Cllr Murphy. He claimed recent arson attacks on refugee accommodation add urgency to the issue, which should be included under the LECP’s goal of ‘inclusivity’. The Salthill representative asserted the anti-racism motion impacts how councillors deal with media on sensitive issues: “Perhaps this is why the Executive didn’t grasp the nettle,” he said.
The October 2022 motion was passed by councillors following national controversy when a Galway City Fianna Fáil councillor apologised for comments he made on a radio show discussing a Traveller family moving to Renmore.
City East councillor Mike Crowe told Galway Talks on Galway Bay FM in September 2022 that Traveller culture is “not conducive” to living with most settled communities, and claimed “history has proven” it leads to “confrontation and general uneasiness”.
Three days later the Bohermore-based publican, who recently qualified as a barrister, apologised for his remarks on Twitter: “There is cut and thrust in politics but there is no room for the broad ranging sweeping generalisations I made about Travellers. For that, I am sorry.”
The October 2022 motion called on “all elected representative to develop an anti-racist protocol charter for the conduct of business in Galway City Council in conjunction with the Galway City Partnership and groups representing minorities including the Galway Traveller Movement, and to have the protocol in place within twelve months.”
Galway City Council’s acting director of corporate governance Brian Barrett presented the new LECP to councillors. He rejected Cllr Murphy’s suggestion that council staff wished to avoid “uncomfortable conversations” on anti-racism policies.
“We have ‘uncomfortable conversations’ all the time,” he retorted. “[Appropriate language] is well catered for in legislation such as SIPO (Standards in Public Office Commission ), and it’s not our job to be policing councillors in terms of inclusivity,” he added.
Councillor Colette Connolly (Ind ) added that the Council has no policy concerning “racist graffiti”. It is understood she was referencing racial slurs spray-painted on a Galway City Museum photography exhibition last October.
The Local Economic & Community Plan is a statutory document each local authority must create every six years. It sets out how the authority will promote and support community development in its own area.
