Motion to locate technology park in Casla attracts no local
support
Seosamh Ó Cuaig, an elected member of Údarás na Gaeltachta,
walked out of last Tuesday's Western Regional Board meeting of Údarás
when his proposal that a technology park mooted for the Spiddal area should
be relocated in the Gaeltacht "heartland" failed to attract a fellow
member to second the motion.
Ó Cuaig expressed his fears that any companies, national or international,
who set up base in a Spiddal-based technology park will fill their employment
vacancies with workers from Galway city and its environs, rather than from the
Gaeltacht. He told the meeting that Casla would be a much more satisfactory
location as it would provide employment for skilled workers from the Gaeltacht
area, rather than English-speaking staff from Galway City. But his motion did
not even go to a vote as none of the other members of the Western Region of
the Board were prepared to second it. At first he said the Board's Chairman,
Cllr. Seán Ó Neachtáin, did not want the issue put to a
vote. He could understand Ó Neachtáin's support for a Spiddal-based
development, Ó Cuaig said, as Cllr. Ó Neachtáin is from
that area, but he felt that other members of the Regional Board, from areas
further west in Connenara, would support the idea of such a major development
being situated in the "heartland" of the Gaeltacht.
When asked directly about the lack of support for his motion from Cllr. Connie
Ní Fhátharta, Ceathrú Rua and Paddy Beatty, Ceantar na
nOileáin, who might havc been expected to agree with his motion, he refused
to he drawn. They would explain this themselves, he was sure, but the minutes
of the meeting would show that not a single member of the Board supported him
and this, he believed, was a "vote of no confidence" in the people
of Connemara West. He had nothing against English speaking workers from the
city, he said, but this, he was afraid, was where the workforce of any technology
park based so close to Galway City would be drawn from.
(Glór Chonamara - June 2001)