Galway Advertiser 2006/2006_11_09/GA_0911_E1_037.pdf 

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November 9 2006

www.galwayadvertiser.ie

N E W S 37

CIE silence on future of Ceannt Station is `ominous' says Michael D
BY KERNAN ANDREWS Galway will lose the only opportunity it may ever have to have a proper integrated public transport system if the Ceannt Station is developed as a major retail centre instead of a transport one. This is the view of Labour Galway West TD Michael D Higgins. He believes that if Ceannt Station is not developed as a regional integrated transport station, there will never be an integrated transport system for Galway or its region. "This is one of the largest city centre sites in Europe to become available for development," he said. "It is a site in a city that does not have an integrated urban transport system, not to speak of a regional one." According to Dep Higgins, a letter sent to CIE - when Mary O'Rourke was Minister for Transport - instructing CIE to assess and dispose of sites surplus to its transport needs, is being used to justify a commercial development at Ceannt Station. "The primary purpose of CIE is to provide public transport and to use its property for that purpose," said Dep Higgins. "Amendment to the legislation allows for alternative use for what is surplus to their transport needs. The difficulty facing Galway is that CIE has not specified what its future needs are and thus the public are left in the dark as to what proportion of the Ceannt Station site will be used for public transport needs." When the Labour Party organised public meetings to discuss public transport, those who attended were unanimous that Ceannt Station should be used to provide a modern architecturally designed regional centre. "There was unanimous support also for the proposal that any space on the site surplus to public transport needs should be made available to the local authority," said Dep Higgins, "for a performance space doubling as a skating rink, a school of music, a civic art gallery, or other such public facility sadly lacking in Galway." Dep Higgins has accused CIE of "riding two horses" by "going through the motions of a modest extension of rail and bus facilities" and combining this with a commercial proposal for retail and residential development. "Galway and its region thus stands to lose the only opportunity we will ever have to have a proper integrated public transport system," he said. "The deafening silence should be broken and the public should put a stop to the sell-off of what the public owns for public services."

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