After weeks of mediation with project managers of the Galway city ring road, travel activist Shane Foran demanded politicians attend a final meeting to witness his withdrawal of a legal challenge to the controversial dual carriageway’s planning permission.
So desperate phone calls were placed, and last Friday afternoon, a showdown of sorts occurred around the city manager’s conference table on the top floor of City Hall on College Road.
Foran wanted John Connolly TD, and Minister of State for Roads, Sean Canney, to attend, but he got more than he bargained for: Ministers Hildegarde Naughton, Noel Grealish, and Canney, accompanied by Galway West deputies Sean Kyne and Connolly, sat in on the meeting between Mr Foran and top officials working on the ring road.
These officials were Galway City Council’s chief executive, Leonard Cleary and project development director, Derek Pender; Galway County Council’s director of services, Uinsinn Finn; and Transport Infrastructure Ireland’s regional manager and senior inspector, Mary Flynn.
A barrister and solicitor acting on behalf of the two local authorities were also present.
Foran landed in with a list of active travel projects and safety improvements he wanted completed around Galway city. Officials arrived with legal caveats, explanations of councillors’ policy responsibilities, maps and pre-drafted promises that there would be no further legal challenges from Foran.
No champagne corks were popped, but after speaking to multiple sources, the Advertiser understands all parties left the meeting satisfied at the outcome, with Foran now armed with a written pledge that the city council will back him with €5,000 worth of independent engineering advice should he wish to contribute submissions to future transport planning matters.
A written agreement was drawn up in which Foran pledged not to make any further complaints to Irish authorities, or international bodies, on the N6 Galway City Ringroad, or assist others to litigate it, once he withdrew his Judicial Review application.
The international dimension refers to road planners’ concerns that a challenge to the ring road could be lodged at European Union level, or even at the UN, based on its Aarhus Convention – ratified by Ireland in 2012 – which protects citizens’ rights to live in a safe and healthy environment.
Negotiated projects
In return, Foran wanted a feasibility study on how city centre traffic can be realistically reduced once the ring road is built.
He has obtained a promise that Transport Infrastructure Ireland will assist Galway City Council in rolling out a number of active travel projects.
It is unclear if this promise includes funding, but the national agency does have access to contingency resources to repair damage done to local roads during ring road construction, and theoretically it could upgrade cycleways and footpaths while doing so.
Foran’s demands include a Bus Stop Enhancement Programme, improved design for traffic islands, zebra crossings at Bohermore Cemetery roundabout, and bylaws for contraflow cycling on one-way streets.
Foran also won promises from City Hall to assess building footpaths and cycle tracks along the Letteragh and Ballymoneen roads in Knocknacarra, and improved infrastructure for vulnerable road users outside the Menlo Park Hotel, where a new junction between the N84 Headford Road, and N6 ring road, is proposed.
Officials convinced him to drop demands for improving the Cappagh Road.
Subsequently, on Monday morning this week, Foran withdrew his application for a judicial review at the High Court in Dublin.
His application for a review of An Coimisiún Pleanála’s greenlight for the N6 Ring Road, issued last April, was based on three assertions that the decision to grant planning permission was flawed under law.
One related to the 2021 Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act, a second that the road’s permission does not tally with Galway’s 2024 inclusion in the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T ), and a third assertion referred to implementation of the EU’s Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA ) Directive.
When called before Mr Justice Richard Humphreys on Monday morning, Foran – who had not engaged lawyers - advised the court he wished to withdraw his judicial review application to challenge the grant of planning.
Speaking afterwards, the 60-year-old software engineer from Rahoon said he felt he had accomplished as much as he realistically could with his ‘College Road Agreement’, and was relieved he would now have more time for himself in the run-up to Christmas.
He did admit, however, that he will always wonder if he would have won his case.
