John McDonagh, Labour Party Local Election candidate in the Central Ward, which includes the Bohermore and Prospect Hill area of the city, has expressed his concerns at the lack of attention being given to this area by Galway City Council.
Years of poor representation of the area have left it with longstanding problems that could, and should, have been rectified. He mentions as examples of the neglect, the broken and unrepaired pathways in parts of Bohermore and Prospect Hill and the fact that there isn’t a single public refuse bin from Eyre Square to Cemetery Cross, an increasingly busy city area. “There is simply no excuse for this”, Mr McDonagh says, as he believes these are relatively easily solved and fixable problems, and he wonders where the local representation on the City Council has been for the last few years.
As well as these longstanding issues, other new and pressing problems have arisen that are not getting the attention they deserve, he believes. McDonagh says that, for example, residents in the area he has met with during canvassing have raised the issue of an increasing number of properties being bought for Airbnb development.
“Often a number of such properties are being bought in bulk for such development”, McDonagh says, and he believes that this has the effect of pushing local people out of the local housing market. “It is changing the nature of the local community and is also increasing the difficulty of local parking”, he says. This is in addition to the development of the new hotel on the Tonerys bar site, ‘has parking been included in this development or will this cause more parking headaches in the area, Mr McDonagh added.
If elected on June 7 to represent this area on Galway City Council, as part of the Central Ward, John McDonagh says that these issues in the Prospect Hill and Bohermore area will be on his action agenda on the Council.
“It is time to end years of neglect and poor representation for the area and give it the attention it is entitled to”, says Mr McDonagh.
