I have called on Minister Dara O’Brien and Minister Peter Burke to immediately arrange a meeting with the Chief Executive of Galway County Council to hear first-hand from the Council the dire financial predicament the local authority is now faced with.
‘It is well documented that Galway County Council has been underfunded to the amount of €28 million per annum. There is an underlying structural weakness in the baseline funding since 2015. This weakness has never been explained to the local authority by the Department and the Department has failed to show the matrix used to allocate funding to the local authorities.
‘The weakness in the funding allocation can only be addressed by a significant correction to the amount allocated to Galway County Council from central government funding.
‘The Council is not able to function with severe staff shortages in all departments within the Council and services are being affected. This issue is ongoing for too long and it is imperative that this funding issue is sorted, otherwise there will be further reductions in services throughout the county.’