CHRISTMAS will be a busy time in Galway, as pubs and hotels fill with crowds of east coast escapees in search of the proverbial good time in the west. But it will be extra busy, too, for the city's doctors, nurses, gardai and ambulance drivers who have to deal with a side of Galway not seen in the glossy brochures - the teething pains of Ireland's fastest growing city.
Every weekend the crowds spill out of the pubs and nightclubs in the city centre in the early hours of the morning. With no buses and long queues for taxis, many make a bee line for Supermac's on Eyre Square, the huge last food outlet as big as any in Dublin. The place quickly fills with long lines of people, some much the worse for wear and ready to take offence if you look sideways at them.
Eyre Square has become the scene of frequent fights creating a general feeling of menace and unease which has convinced many more peaceable types to avoid the famous landmark at night. Alarmed at the growing number of disturbances in the street, the owner of the Imperial Hotel, also on Eyre Square, installed a video camera to monitor proceedings. Kevin Flannery publicly claimed recently he had hours of footage showing violent assaults. He said some overnight residents, as well as night porters, had been attacked.
Perhaps fearful of negative publicity, Mr Flannery declined to elaborate to The Irish Times about the issue. The hoteliers and publicans in the city are in a difficult position: they want something done about the trouble but are afraid if they shout too loud they will damage Galway's fun loving image and scare away the visitors.
It is, however, too late to pretend nothing is happening in the hope it will all go away. Progressive Democrat TD Bobby Molloy went on local radio to air his concerns. Over the following few hours he was inundated with calls from taxi and ambulance drivers who told him he had understated the problem.
"We don't want to give Galway bad publicity," he says. "But the reality is, there is this growing lawlessness and attacks on people in the street." Even the Chamber of Commerce, which is anxious to avoid bad news, admits to "concerns" about the level of policing in the city centre, especially late at night.
The trouble is not confined to Eyre Square. Galway District Court heard recently how a young man ended up in hospital with a fractured nose and injuries to his face, chest and back, after a savage attack by a gang of five or six youths in Salthill. The attack happened shortly after 2 a.m. outside a restaurant.
In another case, a 16 year old boy from Salthill admitted going on a car stealing spree dating back to last Christmas. His career came to an abrupt halt when a stolen Opel Kadett crashed and rolled over on its roof. Garda reinforcements were also called to deal with another scene, which seemed more evocative of the wild west than the wave tapped shores of Galway Bay.
A gang of men surrounded four gardai in a patrol car in Salthill in the early hours, led by a ringleader who incited the crowd to have a go at them. In the scuffle that followed, a bottle was thrown which bounced off one of the gardai. When two of the troublemakers were arrested and brought to Salthill Garda Station, the others followed them to the station and one man threatened to burn down a garda's house. Six men appeared in court in connection with the disturbances; five got suspended sentences while a sixth was fined £500.
ONE of the most shocking attacks of all happened recently when a 17 year old boy was attacked in broad daylight at the railway station on Eyre Square.
The youth had travelled to Galway to attend an open day at UCG. He was accosted by two men after he left some bags in the left luggage. He was dragged into a toilet at the station and forced to perform a sexual act. Gardai have questioned two men about the attack and a file has been sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions. It is thought unlikely the youth will want to go to university in the city.
Explanations for the malaise are many, but one factor must surely be the rapid growth in the city - and the disorganised and ill prepared response of the authorities to that growth. In the tail live years Galway's population has jumped by an extraordinary 12 per cent, from 50,000 to 57,000. This compares with static populations in Cork and Limerick and makes the city the third largest urban area in the State.
As a brash youngster in the urban stakes the city seems determined to repeat all the mistakes of its bigger sisters. Sprawling estates have sprung up on the fringes, without the services or infrastructure to deal with them. The raw sewage - which has caused so much controversy is just one visible sign of a city that cannot cope with what it has become. The huge waiting lists for medical treatment, in hospitals which were designed to deal with a much smaller population, are another. A third is Garda manpower levels. There are about 100 fewer gardai in Galway than Limerick, yet Limerick now has a smaller population.
Even that manning level is not being maintained, according to Mr Molloy. He says there are 14 vacancies outstanding in the force in the city, adding that gardai have to be pulled in from country areas to deal with occasions like Galway Race Week. In recent years gardai have been asked to take on new roles such as community liaison but the extra resources have not been provided. "Galway has been left in this vulnerable position and Garda management in Dublin are ignoring it," he says.
But perhaps the clearest illustration of Galway's growing pains is the Knocknacarragh are a motley collection of suburban housing estates to the west of the city whose grandiose names do little to disguise the poverty of imagination in their design. About 10,000 people live in the area many of whom have moved in since 1990. The only facilities the "community" - if you can call it that - has is one playing pitch and a couple of rooms at the back of the local church. This may change over the next few years, but it will be harder to get rid of the nickname - Knocknatallaght - local wags have coined for the area.
Local councillor Donal Lyons insists there is, as yet, little or no crime in Knocknacarragh. But he is worried about what may be in store. "A lot of people are afraid of what is going to happen in the future, with all the houses that are being built," he says. "From the community point of view the writing is on the wall, unless certain services are provided.
MEANWHILE, elsewhere in the city, other residents are looking over their shoulders as they prepare to move into a new home in the weeks before Christmas. Six families are preparing to leave the Third World squalor of the Hillside traveller encampment and move down to a brand new halting site in a place known as the Bishop's Field in Salthill. The site was developed in the teeth of vehement opposition from some residents in Salthill, fearful of the trouble they said the travellers would cause. But in an ironic twist, some of the travellers at Hillside decided not to put their names down for the Salthill site because they were worried about crime in the area.
Those that are moving are cautiously optimistic, according to one of them, Caroline Barrett. "We don't know the people out there and they don't know us, and naturally they probably feel like we'd feel if we didn't know people," she says. "They think that there's going to be trouble, but there won't be because the families going, in there are quiet. There'll be no hassle, no problems, and we hope it'll be the same way for us."
