City Council meetings to return to City Hall after €200K spend on hotel function rooms

From next month, City Councillors will hold their monthly meetings at City Hall – after a spend of more than €200 thousand on hotel function rooms since 2020.

During the pandemic, the chamber at City Hall was deemed not fit for purpose due to significantly under-spec’d ventilation systems.

The chamber typically used for meetings prior to COVID-19 is relatively small and understandably was deemed unsuitable during the height of the pandemic.

Instead, Galway City Council rented hotel function rooms, and paid professional audio-visual technicians to provide remote-access facilities.

The practice continued long after end of the pandemic, as the executive said they were not willing to subject members to health risks, unless the chamber was upgraded.

But many councillors themselves argued against that, saying that a continued cost of thousands per meeting of public money isn’t acceptable.

At this month’s meeting of Galway City Council – held at the Connacht Hotel – it was agreed that from next month, meetings will once again be held at City Hall.

Ultimately, it turned out that the cost of upgrading the ventilation systems was substantially lower than the €1m price-tag quoted earlier this year.