Galway City Council funds non-existent Airshow festival

galway | bin tax / household tax / water tax | news report

Tuesday December 15, 2009 19:59

by Fred Johnston

2010 Salthill Airshow doesn't exist - but funding granted

In a move that belongs to the X-Files, Galway City Council have granted €25,000 to kick start a display of US and UK warplanes . . . .but no one asked them to!

The truth is out there!

Galway City Council have voted €25,000 as a kick-start to a revamped Salthill Airshow in 2010 - but no application for funding has been made. The money, presumably, is there 'just in case.' The Council say the money will go into other 'marketing initiatives' if the Salthill Airshow Committee don't want it! This, from a City Council that has constantly bewailed its lack of dosh.

The Right-wingish City Council majority are clearly working towards getting the Salthill Airshow, which met with stiff opposition from many individuals and the Galway Alliance Against War, back on its feet. The last Airshow outing ended ignominiously when a helicopter door fell off onto a beach full of spectators. No one was seriously injured.

But there's insult to injury in this nonsense. Joe MacGrath, City Manager, has ordered the withdrawal of the bin-chargers waiver, which will affect 3,500 low-income families. So - €25,000 'just in case' funding to make strait the way for Galway's business interests, and more fees piled on top of Galway's financially disadvantaged, who no doubt will console themselves with the sight of US and UK warplanes dancing over their roofs. For more news on this, anyone in Galway may check The Connacht Sentinel newspaper for today, Tuesday.

Meantime Galway's cultural credentials can be judged by the fact that moves are on to pressure An Taibhdhearc, founded by Micheál Mac Liammoir, to move from their traditional premises so that, eh, other things can be built there.

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Comments (2 of 2)

Non-existent Air Show

by Mandator

Wed Dec 16, 2009 13:22

I understood the committee of organisers had disbanded last year. Now they've regrouped? This holding of funds just in case is a scandal. Is there no TD out there willing to take this matter up? There's a greed in Galway which is not good.

Where have all the Demonstrators Gone?

Mon Dec 21, 2009 20:08

Astute readers of Indymedia and of the Salthill Airshow protests in the past may wonder, as I certainly do, why not one one Galway-based protestor has seen fit to add a comment to the above news item. The GAAW have been especially quiet. Am I missing something here? I should have thought the ardent one-time protestors might have had something to say about the news that the Show was being given a kick-start. But no, apparently. I feel justified in posting this because I have put the question to some of them. The answer is in the lack of comments, I think. Oh! the fickleness of protest these days.

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Galway City Council funds non-existent Airshow festival

Comments (2 of 2)