Electronic parking signs 'as Gaeilge' cost €750,000
A Galway City councillor has said he is “perplexed” by the cost of installing real-time parking information signs around the city.
The signs, which began to operate in early November last year, are said to have cost in the region of €750,000 to install.
Cllr Mike Crowe said he was “genuinely shocked and surprised” that such a large sum was spent by the city council on installing the signs.
“Three-quarters of a million is a serious amount of money for what they do,” said Cllr Crowe. “In my own opinion, they wouldn’t be worth that kind of money.”
In total, 27 real-time parking signs were erected with a further six so-called ‘full matrix’ signs which enable the display of alternating messages to road users.
The Galway City Tribune has learned that each car park sign cost between €10,000 and €13,000 with the full matrix signs costing €35,000 each – the installation of both requiring civil works costing in the region of €200,000.
Questions had been raised about how useful the signs were, especially to tourists – an industry which the Galway economy relies so heavily upon – given that all council-owned parking facilities are exclusively named in Irish.
Newtownsmyth, which is displayed on the signs as Baile Nua Mhic Gabhann, caused a few raised eyebrows – even to fluent Irish speakers.
That’s according to the Mayor, Cllr Frank Fahy, who believed the signs should have included both Irish and English versions of the place names – despite being “a great promoter of the language”.
“While I’d welcome it being in Irish, it has to be in English as well – it’s hugely expensive and it’s not working,” said Cllr Fahy.
“The car parks aren’t recognisable to tourists when it’s so important to our economy.”
For more on this story, see this week’s Galway City Tribune