Landscaping the open space between Forthill Cemetery and Lough Atalia Bridge cost the Galway City Council €23,540, a sum which has been branded as “staggering” and “exorbitant”.
This is the view of Independent councillor Terry O’Flaherty who has hit out at the cost of the landscaping works.
While she accepted the area needed improvement, she found it “staggering” that “this amount of money” could be spent “landscaping a relatively small piece of land when budgets are being cut back across all departments”.
Cllr O’Flaherty intends to raise the matter with the council’s Parks Department as she feels “serious questions” need to be answered.
“I want to establish if the contract was put out to tender and if so, what other prices were received,” she said. “I am also anxious to establish why so much money was spent on one small area when there are many other parts of the city which are equally in need of improvement.”
She also understands that 1,820 plants were supplied and that this “contributed to the excessive cost”. As a result she wants to know who designed the landscaping works and why it was deemed necessary to include so many plants that require high maintenance.
