If we only got the airport and the bypass sorted

ILOVED that story Johnny Mulholland told in his radio interview with Galway Bay fm about taking half an hour for himself and a friend to make their way from one end of High Street to the other on one night of the Galway Races.

That was because it was ‘shoulder-to-shoulder’ among the huge crowds in the district for the Hurdle night. Why, there was even talk of people queuing outside the pubs, while other hostelries seem to have set up a ‘waiting list’ system under which you were promised that you would get in if others left.

For just one crazy moment, the latter story conjured up the idea of HSE-style ‘trolleys’ being set up outside the pubs as the thirsty punters waited their turn . . . but that was just a little too zany an idea for even this fevered brain to entertain for any length of time.

Ideally, you’d wish that there would be less queuing and sheer jostling, but let’s be thankful for what we’ve got. What Race Week, and the ones before it, did show was just how resilient and varied a tourism product we are lucky enough to have here in Galway and the West.

But while we can congratulate ourselves on a remarkable product, there are issues which need to be addressed – not the least of them is access and the future of the city’s airport, and the perennial discussion now on when, and if, the city bypass will ever be built.

Galway is a huge hub for industries such as medical devices and research in that area. Minister Leo Varadkar may argue that we are only a few hours by motorway from Dublin or Shannon and their international links, but, as a capital of a huge slew of country with thousands of jobs with international links, an airport is a vital piece of infrastructure.

The question of the outer bypass seems like it will be around to dog the city for years to come. Lack of a bypass is one of the key reasons why there are times when an entire community grinds to a halt – with tens of thousands of cars per day funnelled through areas like Quincentenary Bridge, because there is no other way to get to the west of the city.

The outer bypass is now in some sort of planning-legal limbo which is slowly grinding away in Europe. For a time I personally thought that someone like former TD Frank Fahey might be able to lead the campaign to success to get the outer bypass built.

Not exactly a Monsignor Horan, but someone who had a singlemindedness of approach and simply would not allow the business to slip down the public agenda of the city.

Others out there had also joined in a sort of unofficial campaign to keep the outer bypass before the public . . . is there a latter-day Monsignor Horan in the midst of our public or business life?