Mayor denies a conflict of interest over property deal

Date Published: {J}

By Dara Bradley

The Mayor of Galway was this week forced to defend his integrity amid claims of a conflict of interest in relation to property dealings with Galway City Council.

A row broke out at Monday’s special meeting on housing when City Councillor Catherine Connolly (Ind) accused Mayor Mike Crowe (FF) of having a conflict of interest in relation to him being involved in an agreement with the local authority under the Rental Accommodation Scheme (RAS)

Cllr Connolly was referring to a report in the Galway City Tribune last month in which it was revealed that Mayor Crowe is receiving payments in the region of €5,000 a month from the Council under contracts awarded to him as a landlord under the RAS.

Most of the eleven properties Mayor Crowe declared in the councillors’ Register of Interests are contracted to the local authority under the scheme. The contracts guarantee landlords year-round payment of rental income by the local authority on behalf of tenants, regardless of whether the accommodation is vacant or occupied.

When the quarterly housing scheme was being discussed, Cllr Connolly said the Mayor and other councillors who are benefitting from RAS, should not be allowed to discuss it.

“You have a conflict of interest because you are involved in the RAS scheme. I’m simply saying that you should declare you interest in it and not comment on the scheme,” she said.

But Mayor Crowe defended his involvement in the scheme and said tenants, and not him, were the main beneficiary of RAS. It was also saving the taxpayer money, he said.

“Everybody on this scheme is treated equally; no individual or company is treated favourably. I am in it, I applied to be in it, and I have no difficulty with that . . . I declared it. If anybody wants to have a go at me because it’s populist then good luck to them,” he said.Later in the meeting, Cllr Declan McDonnell (Ind) asked Cllr Connolly to clarify if she was referring to one councillor (Mike Crowe) who was involved in RAS, or was there more.

“Who are these councillors you are talking about . . . I thought it was ‘councillor’, not ‘councillors’,” he said.

For more, read this week's Galway City Tribune.