Ms Cathy Ní Ghóill:

-----and it is unfortunate. This compounds the situation and comes back to not being listened to. When decisions are being made, we are left out in the cold. It happened again last week. There was a decision of the stakeholders concerning this crisis last Friday but the biggest stakeholder, the islanders, were not allowed to attend that meeting. To be fair, Mr. Kelly has met me, taken every call and answered every e-mail and we have had dialogue. However, when it comes to being in the room when the decisions are being, we are not there and we are left in the dark. It also happened when the levies were being brought in four years ago. In terms of democracy, as I stated earlier, it was the wrong decision. If we had been listened to at the time, we would not be in this mess, but the councillors, unfortunately, did not listen to us.

I hate to put this bluntly but I feel they saw Inis Mór as some kind of a cash cow. There is plenty being spent on infrastructure throughout the county but there are no charges or levies to use it. This was a cash cow given the number of tourists coming to Inis Mór. That is putting it bluntly. I do not want to knock any more bridges. I want to build bridges with the council so that we can move forward in a way that this will not happen again. I want to improve our dialogue with the council. At the end of the day, we are all proud of our county. The Aran Islands, and Inis Mór, are often treated as the jewel in the crown of County Galway but it is time that jewel was taken care of. It is very tarnished at the moment and needs shining up because we are struggling while fighting for these services. This has taken two days out of our week. We have left young kids to come up here. It is my job and I will do it as best I can and with a heart and a half because I believe in the island, but this is ridiculous. We are four years at it. Deputy Grealish touched on it. The members are sick of looking at us. We are coming in, begging, and asking why is the plane going to be pulled and why we do not have a ferry. Dialogue has to be improved.

We are part of Galway County Council. We are part of the county. I hope we can work on that as we move forward. Níl a fhios agam an bhfuil aon cheist a d'fhág mé amach.