Behind-the-scenes manoeuvring in relation to the Corrib waterways is concerning environmental groups, reports Lorna Siggins
Who runs Galway? The city council? The city manager? Or just plain old big business? It is a question that several groups, both political and environmental, have been asking over the last few years as "development" has left its imprint on a fragile streetscape. The Green Party recently called on the Flood tribunal to come and investigate.
It is also a question that barrister and local Labour Party councillor Catherine Connolly has posed in the wake of what she describes as her recent "ousting" from the chair of a public body. Few had heard of the Lough Corrib Navigation Trustees until Connolly took over as chair. Nor did the barrister and mother of two know too much about it when she was elected to the city council in 1999.
Dubbed "heir apparent" to sitting TD and former Arts minister Michael D. Higgins, Alderman Connolly began to make her presence felt on the local authority level from very early on. She was constantly on her feet at meetings, seeking further information and clarification on many issues, including the very controversial matter of incineration. As part of her remit, she was nominated as a Corrib navigation trustee, and applied the same thorough approach to the job on hand.
Described as "secretive" and a "local authority quango" by An Taisce, the Lough Corrib Navigation Trust has a 150-year-old pedigree which even the Belfast Agreement could not touch. Under the peace deal between the North and South, all canals and navigations in the State were taken over by the cross-Border body, Waterways Ireland. Not so the Corrib system in Galway, which remains in the hands of its nominated local guardians.
The Lough Corrib Navigation Trust dates back to the early 1860s, when the Commissioners of Public Works had just completed one of a series of Famine relief projects in the west of Ireland. An artificial waterway was constructed to link Cong on Lough Corrib to the sea, including lock gates and a large mooring area - the well-known Claddagh Basin.
As local historian Peadar O'Dowd notes, the new Eglinton Canal was regarded as one of Galway's major engineering projects when it opened in 1851. Combined with the development of the commercial docks, it gave trade a much-needed fillip in the years after the Great Famine. The system complemented the seven waterways running through Galway, which was once known as Baile na Struthain, the town of the streams - fuelling some 23 working mills in the city area.
The Eglinton canal's own working life lasted a brief century. When it was closed in 1954, its five swivel bridges were replaced by permanent, concrete structures. However, the trust which had been charged with maintaining its navigation continued to operate, under legislation which was updated in 1945.
The Lough Corrib Navigation Act, 1945 provided that the board of trustees had eight members. The composition reflected the Corrib's geographical location, straddling the Galway-Mayo border; three local authorities were entitled to nominate representatives - five from Galway city, two from Galway county and one from Mayo.
Its main responsibilities related to maintenance and upgrading of navigation beacons,marks, the piers and harbours vested in it, the canal, towpath, railings and locks. The trustees had no jurisdiction over the other waterways in the city. An annual budget was provided, with just under two-thirds coming from Galway Corporation. Currently the budget is set at about €200,000.
It had the power to employ one or two seasonal staff, and to draw on the services of the city council's engineer.
However, within months of Alderman Connolly taking over the chair, the body found itself in the middle of several controversies. In May, 2000, the body was informed that a private ferry company was going to provide a link across the Corrib between Headford and Oughterard.
There was general welcome for the proposal, given that a ferry link could cut out a 50-mile round-trip by road between east and west of the sprawling county. The city manager at that time, Joe Gavin, made it clear that he was supporting a bid by Shannon Ferries Ltd, which runs the Killimer-Tarbert car ferry across the Shannon estuary.
However, Alderman Connolly expressed concern when it emerged that public piers under the trustees' charge were going to be used, and that almost €180,000 (£140,000 pounds) of public funds were going to be used to upgrade same. The project had not gone out to tender, nor had there been any public consultation.
She used her casting vote on two occasion to retain the piers at Knockferry and Kilbeg in public ownership. For her pains, she was accused of trying to block the project - even though she had made it clear that she supported it in principle.
Subsequently, the ferry company agreed to build its own piers, subject to planning permission. It is expected to lodge this application shortly, as part of a planned investment of around €2.5 million.
Last year, the Lough Corrib Navigation Trustees were very active again when it emerged that they had not been consulted about a planning development overlooking the Eglinton canal, and adjoining its towpath. The planning approval for an apartment development in the New Road/Henry Street area of the city was also in breach of the city development plan, Alderman Connolly maintained.
The approval was strongly opposed by local residents' groups.
It was this issue which appears to have led to a direct clash between the chairwoman and the body's secretary: the director of services for Galway City Council, Joe O'Neill. Every time Connolly voiced her concerns at meetings, she was told that the body had no role in planning.
Alderman Connolly said that, while she accepted this, the trustees were "burying their heads in the sand". There is a clause allowing for consultation in relation to the navigation under section 14 of the legislation. This "consultation" was compromised by the fact that the city council's director of services was also acting as secretary to the trustees.
"You could have situations where he was writing to himself. It was a direct conflict of interest," she points out. "Such duality of roles is not in the public interest. The public interest would be better served by trustees willing to act independently of the local authorities, as they are obliged to do by law." In fact, few of her fellow members, including two Fianna Fáil and one Progressive Democrat, were willing to take a "much more proactive stance", she says.
In the event, work on the apartment development was halted several months ago because of breaches in the planning permission. The developers have recently lodged an application for a retention order on the apartment block.
Two months ago, the Lough Corrib Navigation Trustees were due to hold their annual general meeting, which included a tour of part of the Corrib system. Alderman Connolly had contracted a bad bout of flu, and had court to attend. She says she asked her fellow trustees to change the time of the meeting, but it went ahead without her.
A new chairman, the former mayor of Co Galway, Councillor Michael Regan (FF), was elected in her place. Alderman Connolly maintains that she had been elected for five years, back in 1999; she checked the minutes back to 1970 and found that there was no record of holding AGMs for the purpose of electing a chair.
Councillor Regan denies that there was anything underhand in his election. "I was the only nominee, and the decision was unanimous." Several other trustees concur, and state that the request by Alderman Connolly to defer the time of the meeting came at very short notice. "Several of our members have to travel a distance. It just wasn't feasible to change the time."
Alderman Connolly says she will continue to serve as a trustee. In the meantime, O'Neill has relinquished his post as secretary, and the responsibility has been passed to another member of city council staff, Siobhan Farrell. O'Neill denies that this came about as a result of Alderman Connolly's criticisms.
"She never raised the issue at meetings," he says. "I have been doing several different jobs for some years, and have been trying to pass this one on, but we had an engineer who also served the trustees retiring recently. So it wasn't a good time for me to change."
An Taisce and Cairde na Gaillimhe have raised concerns about the workings of the body, given the increased pressure on development on and off the water in Galway. Only recently, there were reports of a move to develop a floating restaurant on the Claddagh Basin. Representatives of An Taisce and Cairde na Gaillimhe sought public access to the trustees' last meeting on this issue, and were refused. "I had no formal request, and so I had to turn them away," O'Neill says.
Derrick Hambleton, chair of An Taisce's Galway branch, says he had no issue with the workings of the trustees in the past. "But I do wonder now why this quango is so secretive, given the recent number of controversial planning issues which have arisen on the banks of the city canals, and which have seen public property being transferred to the ownership of private development interests."
A body like the Lough Corrib Navigation Trustees is abdicating its role, in his view, if it does not take the approach adopted by its former chair. And the responsibility and authority of local government everywhere is compromised.