Galway Bay fm newsroom - A new report examining the transparency of Ireland's local authorities has found Galway City and County Councils need to do more to curb the risks of corruption within their organisations.
The National Integrity Index released today from Transparency International Ireland has examined areas such as ethics or donation statements from councillors, freedom of information requests and tender and planning processes within local authorities nationwide.
The report scored Galway City at 18 out of 30 and Galway County Council at 15 out of 30 when it comes to overall transparency.
Galway County Council saw one of the biggest improvements in the scale, moving from a score of just 5 out of 30 last year, to 15 this year.
The Index by Transparency International Ireland is used to judge councils on transparency, accountability and ethics given they spent 5 billion euro of public money last year.
It finds Fingal and South Dublin County Councils are the most transparent, while Kerry and Westmeath are the worst performing.
Wexford, Galway County and Kilkenny showed the biggest improvements.
But the body claims too few are open with their efforts to tackle the risk of corruption, with just 10 of the 31 local authorities publishing donations statements or ethics declarations of their councillors.
Researcher Dr. Elliott Jordan-Doak says publishing financial donations would reassure the public - and he says the public has a right to know:
The Index finds councils published more information than was the case last year, but none put online the diaries of their chief executives.
