CITY COUNCIL DEFERS PLANS FOR REDUCED BURIAL SERVICE

Date Published: 11-Sep-2012

Galway City Council has agreed to defer plans to reduce the current seven day burial service to six, following high level objections by councillors.

At last evening's council meeting, Director of services Ciarán Hayes proposed to reduce the service to six days with immediate effect.

He qualified this by stating the council was breaching compliance with the working time act, and added that an extra six staff were needed to cover the service.

During intense talks, City Councillor Ollie Crowe questioned how the current six staff could run a six day service, but a total of 12 were needed to run seven days.

Ciaran Hayes said that the staff would be needed to cover situations arising from extra burial demands, and that he had made representations to get the extra numbers required.

Councillor Donal Lyons said that people were very distressed about plans to cut the service, while Cllr Billy Cameron objected to tampering with the service.

City Councillors agreed unanimously to keeping the current 7 day burial service in place until December and in the interim find a way to keep it operating full time in 2013.

Speaking to Galway Bay FM news, City Councillor Declan McDonnell said councillors would find a way to keep the service going.