Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I hope I am being constructively critical of the city and county councils in Galway, but it is not totally fair. They are under-resourced. They do not have enough staff and the county council is certainly at its wits' end. They are also competing with a model of development that has continued on, and which was there before we declared a climate emergency, with the same absolute consumerism prevalent. We have no balanced regional development. Galway is designated as one of the five cities while Carraroe, i gcroílár na Gaeltachta, is going under with other towns as well. I think also of Kilmaine and Shrule, which are in Mayo. There is a misalignment of policies. When they do something like designate a decarbonisation zone, there is no action from the Government two and half years later. They were waiting on the guidelines. The guidelines put an onerous responsibility on the local authorities to discuss and liaise and to have co-partnership with stakeholders without any indication of what resources would be available. In Galway city we worked without a biodiversity officer until approximately one year ago. The Government tolerated that situation and at local level told us one could not be recruited because of resources. I am not sure where the truth lies but I have a great empathy with the staff on the ground working within the local authorities.

See this speech in context