All 70 trees planted as part of the Seamus Quirke Road expansion scheme – estimated to be worth in the region of €20,000 – are to replaced in the autumn.

However, it is the third time the local authority has said the trees will be replaced.

The City Council said this week that work will be carried out in September or October by the original contractors to replace the trees, many of died shortly after they were planted in 2011 and 2012.

It’s understood the Council will not be ‘footing the bill’ for the new trees, and the costs will be covered by Coffey Construction.

More than half of the trees – which were planted semi-mature and were worth several hundred euro each – are dead, and the others are dying.

An initial assurance was given to this newspaper in August 2013 that work on replacing the trees would begin within “two weeks”.

No work was carried out and in July 2014, an assurance was given that the work would be carried out last autumn.

A spokesperson for the Council said the authority has recently been in contact with the contractors and the stock of trees will be replenished, with new planting taking place in September or October.

The spokesperson was unable to say why the work had not already taken place.

Local area councillor Padraig Conneely – an outspoken critic of the €16.5 million Seamus Quirke Road scheme and its massive cost over-runs – said a report needs to come before the Council on why so many trees failed.

“This probably cost in the region of €20,000 and you’d have to wonder why so many of the trees died so quickly,” he said.

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The route selection report on the proposed new city bypass is set to be published in mid-August.

The detailed report, which will run to several thousand pages, will outline all the information that has been compiled and used to date in the selection of the emerging preferred route, which was published in May.

It will include all sorts of environmental information, public consultation, logs of traffic patterns, constraints along the routes examined and so on.

Michael Timmins, senior road engineer with Galway County Council, the agency leading the project on behalf of the National Roads Authority and Galway City Council, confirmed it would be published in a few weeks.

“We’re still working away to a schedule. The route selection report will be published in mid-August. It’s a very substantial document and will have thousands of pages and appendices. It is a detailed document of all the information about how we got to this point in the process of route selection,” said Mr Timmins.

He explained that the County Council, and consultants Arup, are on course to publishing the Compulsory Purchase Orders (CPOs), Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and Natura Impact Statement (NIS) in Spring 2016.

Once the CPOs, EIS and NIS are published, it is then a matter for An Bórd Pleanála, he said.

“We are continuing our work. We are following the statutory process . . . we are on course for CPOs, NIS and EIS to be published in the Spring of next year,” he said.

Mr Timmins said the Council was keeping up its end of the bargain and was on schedule with its body of work but he acknowledged once it goes to An Bórd Pleanála it could be delayed by all sorts of issues, including possible legal challenges and a lack of funding.

Mr Timmins said that the Council is still engaging with landowners and property owners along the emerging preferred route.

The road footprint is being tweaked still he said, in order to facilitate those affected. “Even this week we had two or three landowners in to us. It’s not going to be moved 500 metres but we are facilitating moving slightly in one direction or the other to minimise the impact on people. We might change a junction or move it one way or the other to limit the impact on those affected but it has to be within road design guidelines because we cannot compromise on safety,” he said.

Meanwhile, some 130 people, including around 20 politicians, – and not 500 or 600 people as had been claimed – attended a meeting in the Clayton Hotel last week where opposition to the road and possible alternatives were aired.

Following the public meeting, representatives from Galway N6 Action Group, and groups from Barna and Castlegar held a meeting where it was agreed to ‘step up’ plans to co-ordinate their opposition to the road. They are planning another public meeting in September.

Independent Senator Fidelma Healy Eames issued a statement this wek to say that the emerging preferred route had to be ‘signed off’ by the Minister for Transport, Paschal Donohoe before it is submitted to An Bórd Pleanála.

However, the Department of Transport midweek appeared to throw cold water on this suggestion.

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The case of a 22-year-old married man who pleaded guilty to having sex in a fast-food restaurant toilet with an underage schoolgirl three years ago may now become a test case following the intervention of the Rape Crisis Centre.

The man, who cannot be named in order to protect the identity of the victim, pleaded guilty to defilement of a child aged under 17 years of age, when he appeared before Galway Circuit Criminal Court last year.

The plea was accepted by the prosecution at the time.

He was placed under the supervision of the probation service for a year and the matter was adjourned to last week for up-to-date reports on him and on the victim.

Detective Sgt Willie Beirne told the sentence hearing in March 2014 that the girl made a complaint to Gardai that she had been sexually assaulted by the accused in a toilet in McDonald’s in Shop Street on April 8, 2012.

She was 16 years old at the time and was very distressed by what had happened.

She said she met the accused while drinking in Eyre Square with friends and he tried to lure her down an alleyway but she refused to go with him. He then followed her down Shop Street and into the toilet in McDonald’s where, she said, she allowed him kiss her.

She said he then followed her into the cubicle and she shouted for help but he told her to shut up before having sex with her.

The accused was arrested a short time later and denied any involvement.

However, in a second interview he claimed they had had consensual sex. He claimed he thought she was 17 or 18 and when told she was 16, he denied having sex with her at all.

Sgt Beirne said the girl was in secondary school at the time and had very little parental support. He read out a victim impact statement on behalf of the girl who was present in court with a friend.

In her statement, the girl said she had been diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder as a result of the sexual assault.  She was very distressed and upset and was still afraid to come into the city for fear of meeting her assailant.

She became severely depressed after the attack and took an overdose.

Her counsellor said at the time that even with counselling, she would continue to suffer well into the future.

Sgt Beirne said the accused had been living in a hostel at the time and was hanging around the streets. He had eight previous convictions for public order offences, burglary, possession of knives and for thefts.

Mr Paul Flannery SC, defending, said last year that his client was now married with one child. He asked for sentence to be deferred.

In light of a positive probation report on the accused last year and on the recommendation of the probation service, Judge Rory McCabe adjourned sentence for a year and placed the accused under the supervision of the service in the interim.

However, a letter handed into court last week from the Rape Crisis Centre and an up-to-date probation report on the accused changed the complexion of the case for Judge McCabe.

While the contents of the letter and the report were not revealed in open court, Judge McCabe said he could not finalise sentence after reading the documents.

Sgt Willie Byrne confirmed to the judge that the girl had attended one appointment at the Rape Crisis Centre but was unable to continue with counselling.

“She is still severely traumatised by what happened to her and she’s still in a very bad place,” he said.

Recalling the evidence at the initial hearing last year, Mr Flannery said it had been the girl’s case in the Book of Evidence that she felt she had been raped.

However, the video evidence from the toilet area (outside the cubicle), he said, showed a different scenario and based on that it was agreed last year between the prosecution and the defence that his client would plead guilty to having sex with an underage girl and that was accepted by the prosecution.

There was no suggestion at the time, he said, that his client had raped the girl and his client had said it was consensual.

Mr Flannery said that in light of the developments (contained in the letter from the Rape Crisis Centre regarding the victim), he found himself at a disadvantage because he was now faced with evidence that put a different ‘colour’ on the case; something that had been taken out of the equation at the start by agreement with the prosecution.

Adjourning sentence to November, Judge McCabe said an unrelated issue had been raised in the accused man’s probation report and that, coupled with the most recent letter from the Rape Crisis Centre, which, he said, was “an opening gambit in what might be a test case down the road” meant he could not finalise the matter just yet.

The judge said that now that the game had commenced, he believed the issues raised in the most recent documents before the court had to “play out” first before justice could take its course in November.

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Overall attendance at this year’s Galway Races was up on last year, with more than 140,000 people attending the 2015 event over the past seven days.
The summer racing festival attracted visitors from around the world and saw overall increase in attendances of over 1,000 on last year.
For the final day of the Galway Races summer festival yesterday (Sunday), attendances were down slightly, however, with just over 12,600 travelling to Ballybrit. By comparison, last year’s attendance at the Sunday meeting was around 13,700. Yesterday’s Tote betting aggregate was up, by almost €18,000 to just over €528,600.
The bookies’ turnover for Sunday was down by around €48,000 to just short of €627,000.
The feature race yesterday was the Irish Stallion Farms EBF ‘Ahanoora’ Handicap. That was won by the Brian Ellison-trained Baraweez under jockey Donnacha O’Brien.
Sunday also saw the annual Mad Hatter’s Competition at Galway Races.
Eilis McEvoy from Claregalway won the main prize in the Ireland West Airport Knock and Ryanair sponsored competition.
Eilis, originally from County Offally created a hat inspired by the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party – made up of several layers of cups and saucers.
Ten-year-old Shauna Cronin, from Menlo, recreated Galway’s famous landmark Cathedral (celebrating its 50th anniversary this year) and won the children’s section.

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New figures show that overcrowding at the Emergency Department at University Hospital Galway has worsened significantly over the last two years.
The number of people waiting on trolleys at UHG last month was more than twice the number waiting in July 2013, according to the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation.
The latest Trolley Watch data shows that a total of 654 people were waiting on trolleys at UHG last month.
This was more than twice the figure for the same month in 2013 when there were 295 people waiting for emergency admission.
The situation at UHG last month was among the worst of any A&E department nationwide.
Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda had 769 people on trolleys in July.
On each day of last month, there was an average of 292 people awaiting emergency admission to hospitals around the country – the highest figure for July recorded since Trolley Watch began in 2004.
Phil Ni Sheaghdha of the INMO said that with every acute hopsital at 100 percent occupancy, all that staff could do was fire fight.
A spokesperson for the HSE said that reducing the numbers waiting on trolleys was a priority issue and that efforts were being made to reduce the number of delayed discharge patients.
The figures from Trolley Watch show a slight month-on-month drop in the numbers on trolleys at UHG. The figure for last June was 670.
UHG is currently construct a new 75-bed ward block to reduce overcrowding at the hospital.

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Galway Bay FM Newsroom – A memorial stone in remembrance of Pádraig Pearse and his link with the local Volunteers has been unveiled in Rosmuc in Connemara.
The memorial is at the spot where Pearse carried out drilling and training manoeuvres with the Rosmuc group in the period before 1916.
The first national commemoration of the 1916 Rising events was held this week at the O’Donovan-Rossa graveside in Glasnevin.
But in a quitter setting in Ros Muc in Connemara, Padraig Pearse and the group of local volunteers whom he trained were also remembered.
A memorial stone was unveiled at Cnocán na Móna, close to Cill Bhriocáin cemetery, where Pearse carried out drilling and manoeuvres with the local volunteers.
The stone was unveiled by two renowned former boxers from Ros Muc – Seán Mannion who fought for the world light middleweight title in the 1980s, and Máirtín Nee who was a top ranking heavyweight boxer in England in times past.
Pearse, who is said to have written the famous O Donovan Rossa oration in his Rosmuc cottage, had a close involvement with local people and the memorial stone symbolises that historic link.

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Galway Bay fm newsroom – Galway’s only Independent T.D carried forward 14 thousand euro of his parliamentary leaders’ allowance from 2014 this year.
Independent and non-party T.Ds get an annual allowance of 37 thousand 137 euro.
Previously, Independent T.Ds didn’t have to declare their expenditure, however Minister for Public Expenditutre, Brendan Howlin introduced a policy review in the 2014 Budget.
They now have to submit returns to the Standards in Public Office Commission.
According to today’s Irish Times, the first audited returns cover the last 6 months of 2014.
They show that Galway West Deputy Noel Grealish carried forward over 14 thousand euro of his allowance to 2015.
Spending by deputies is divided into 6 categories – technical advice, research and development, policy formation, consultancy, polling and entertainment.

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More than a dozen cars suffered serious water damage following flooding in Salthill last night.

High tides combined with strong winds to cause the flooding along the Promenade. The stretch behind Seapoint to Dr Colohan Road was closed by Gardaí and the City Council from around 8pm.

High Tide in Salthill was at 8.12pm. This is the Promenade just now. #summeringalway pic.twitter.com/SRyr2f2qfo

— Enda Cunningham (@endacunningham) August 3, 2015

Cars parked in Toft Park carpark suffered serious damage, as did a number of others which were parked in the main carpark on the Promenade.

If you are parked on Salthill Prom or parked behind Seapoint, move immediately. pic.twitter.com/EUadW8vPh1 — Enda Cunningham (@endacunningham) August 3, 2015

The roads remained closed until this morning, and no further problems were caused by high tide, which was at 8.40am.

Met Eireann had issued a weather warning for high winds and gusts yesterday, with gusts reaching up to 100km/h. That warning had been in effect until 9pm, although it was subsequently extended until 6am today.

The Coast Road in Oranmore and other coastal areas around the county also suffered flooding.

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Galway Bay fm newsroom – A Galway consultant says the HSE has not acted quickly enough to improve standards in nursing homes across Ireland.
It follows reports that thousands of beds at state-run nursing homes could be closed because they don’t meet accommodation standards.
HIQA is introducing a new ‘get tough’ policy to tackle a lack of progress with long-promised refurbishment and improvements at centres across the country.
The health watchdog has proposed to refuse registration to two centres – with a further 10 facing barring orders on accepting new residents.
36 more centres, meanwhile, must wait for decisions.
Professor Shaun O’Keeffe is a Consultant Geriatrician in Galway.
He says the HSE had plenty of warning about the deadline for improvements – and should have acted before now.

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Galway Bay fm newsroom – Galway City Council is being urged to address a series of health and safety concerns for swimmers in Salthill.
Galway Senator Fidelma Healy Eames says local swimmers have contacted her asking for an urgent intervention over the condition of facilities at Salthill beaches.
Senator Healy Eames says toilet and shower facilities and ladders or steps into the water are in urgent need of refurbishment.
She’s calling on the City Council to carry out improvements to make swimming more accessible and safer for locals and visitors.

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Galway Bay fm newsroom – Gardaí are trawling through CCTV footage after an alleged unprovoked assault in the city centre during Race Week.
A man, in his mid 30s, received facial injuries in the incident at Fairgreen Road which happened in the early hours of last Friday morning.
He was taken to University Hospital Galway with serious injuries after he was punched and kicked in the face.
Anyone who may have witnessed the attack at Fairgreen Road as Ladies Day celebrations were underway, is asked to contact Mill Street garda station at 091 53 8000.
Meanwhile a 19-year-old woman was injured in an attempted robbery as she walked near the Cathedral a few hours earlier last Thursday night.
A man on a bicycle attempted to grab her bag and she was dragged along the ground by the bike for a time.

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Galway Bay fm newsroom – A team of consultants is expected to be put in place in September to design a new Mental Health Day Hospital in Tuam.
The design team will prepare an overall development plan for the Old Grove Hospital in the town.
The new development would consist of a mental health day hospital, a base for community mental health teams, and accommodation for staff working in Early Intervention and School Age teams.
Long-term plans for the site include the addition of a primary care center, a community nursing unit, day care center and Dementia Unit as funds became available.
Construction is expected to begin on the Primary Care Centre later this year.
The facility is being built as part of a national Public Private Partnership programme to develop primary care centres across Ireland.

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Galway Bay fm newsroom – Around 15 thousand people across Galway are set to benefit from the rollout of free GP care for the over 70s.
The new healthcare provision means that anyone over the age of 70 who does not have a medical or GP visit card can now sign up for free GP visits.
The service will be available from tomorrow. (5/8)
Galway West TD Derek Nolan says Galway doctors are ready and willing to take on the new under 6s and over 70s schemes.
He says this means many Galway residents will be able to stick with their own GP.

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Galway Bay fm newsroom – The minister responsible for the Office of Public Works will visit County Galway tomorrow.
Minister Simon Harris will visit parts of the county which are susceptible to flooding, particularly along the route of the new M17/M18 Gort to Tuam motorway.
Minister Harris’ visit follows a series of concerns raised by South Galway residents and councillors over the future of Kiltiernan National School.
They claim flood mitigation works are needed to prevent any flooding caused during the motorway’s construction.
The minister will visit the school for a private meeting with local representatives and residents at around 10.30 tomorrow morning.
He’ll then travel to Turoe, Bullaun and Athenry Castle for meetings on local heritage issues.

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A syndicate group of four work colleagues from Galway city has won €370,000 in the EuroMillions lottery
The four, who work for a catering company in the city, won the prize in the draw last Friday and each get €93,000.
The lucky winners, who wish to keep the win private, bought their €10 Quick Pick ticket in Duggan’s Supermarket in Renmore
They have been playing together for fourteen years and were in high spirits as they collected their prize in National Lottery offices today.
One member of the syndicate also celebrates his birthday today and told lottery staff “This is the best birthday ever – how do you top this?!”
They plan to use the windfall to pay some bills as well as treating themselves to a special holiday.

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Galway Bay fm newsroom – Almost 1,100 new cars were registered in Galway in the last month – an increase of almost 60% on July of last year.
The motor industry is welcoming the highest sales in new cars since the start of the recession.
Almost 4,500 new cars have been sold in Galway so far this year, an increase of over a third on the same period last year.
Nationally, almost 110 thousand new cars have been sold so far this year.
The increase in activity has seen 5,600 new jobs in the sector nationwide since June 2014.

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Galway Bay fm newsroom – Dubliners with holiday homes in Connemara have given their backing to the controversial city bypass project in a bid to avoid long traffic delays.
That’s according to light rail campaigners Tram Power who are urging the city council to reconsider alternative means of solving the city’s congestion problems.
The proposed bypass corridor would see the demolition of 41 homes in areas including Barna, Ballymoneen Road, Dangan, Bushy Park, Menlo and Castlegar.
Tram Power says the GLUAS light rail system would offer a real and sustainable alternative serving the city centre, the hospital and university and many residential and employment hubs.
The group has writtin to the local authority requesting another meeting to put its case forward.
Lewis Lesley of Tram Power says all options must be weighed up and carefully considered.
He says he has received correspondence which indicates that the level of support for the bypass project mainly comes from Dublin.

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Monopoly bosses have recruited the current Miss Galway Tirna Slevin – ironically Dublin born – to help promote the Galway version of their board, which will be out in October in time for Christmas.

Student Tirna was born in Dublin but lives in Galway.

Earlier in the year, the 20-year-old was crowned Miss Galway.

Ironically one of the most popular suggestions from polling was that instead of ‘Go to Jail’, the Galway themed board should instead command: ‘Go to Dublin!’.

But does Tirna agree? “No comment,” she smirks.

“I’d choose Galway Bay or Kylemore Abbey for one of the top positions. I can’t wait to see the final board and it will certainly be top of my Christmas wish list letter to Santa!” she says.

In all 22 London streets will become Galway themed and take over the multi-coloured London Monopoly streets. Playing cards are being Galway themed too.

“Loved landmarks as opposed to mere streets will replace the London locations,” says Rob Osborne from the board’s makers Winning Moves UK.

Polling has seen votes that have come in from tourists from as far as the US – with some coming in from Italy.

As well as the property sites taking on a county flavour and feel, Chance and Community Chest playing cards will be heavily customised too. The four train stations from the original Monopoly board are being handed over to a ‘travel’ theme.

Monopoly celebrates its’ 80th birthday this year, having first hit shop shelves in 1935.

Winning Moves are the makers of this unique and official board under official license from Monopoly owners Hasbro.

The new board will be available at all good toy and book stores across County Galway from October 2, including at Eason’s and Smyth’s. The board will also be widely available online, including at amazon.co.uk

It will be launched on October 2 at Kylemore Abbey when all the identities of the board will be revealed. Miss Galway will play the first board along with a ‘VIP’ – Very Important Player – member of the public.

And Winning Moves UK – which is producing this board under license from Monopoly owners Hasbro –predicts overseas sales, particularly from the US, will be enormous.

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A pregnant woman, arrested on suspicion of drink driving, claimed she refused to give a urine sample because two male Garda refused to leave the room where the sample was to be given.

Carolynn Kelly (32), a mother of three with another on the way, from 122 An Sean Bhaile, Doughiska, denied a charge of refusing to give a sample or either blood or urine following her arrest and detention at a Garda station on suspicion of a drink driving offence on September 27 last year.

Ms Kelly did plead guilty at Galway District Court to breaching the peace on the same occasion by engaging in threatening, abusive and insulting words or behaviour.

Garda Paula O’Dowd told the hearing she received a call of a vehicle driving dangerously on the Coast Road near Oranmore at 3.20pm and she arrived in the area ten minutes later, where she observed Kelly driving up the Doughiska Road.

She observed her stop at the traffic lights at Roscam, get out of her car and start shouting at the driver behind her.

Kelly, she said, was extremely aggressive when she spoke to her.  She got a strong smell of alcohol from her breath and arrested her on suspicion of drink driving.

Garda O’Dowd said Kelly continued to be extremely aggressive at the garda station and remained so when the nurse arrived to take a sample from her.

Garda O’Dowd said she asked Kelly to provide either a specimen of her blood or urine to the nurse, but she refused to provide either and continued to be very aggressive and very difficult.

Defence solicitor, John Martin, said his client refused to provide a blood specimen but exercised her option to give a specimen of urine. However, there were a number of people in the room.

Garda O’Dowd said another female Garda had to assist her to bring Kelly to the doctor’s room because she was lying on the ground kicking. She said she, the other female Garda and the nurse were present in the room.

Mr Martin said his client would say there were two male Gardai in the room.

Kelly gave evidence that she had no issue with the arrest but when they got back to the Garda station she was asked to provide a specimen. She said she agreed to give a urine specimen if the two gentlemen left the room.

She said the two male Gardai didn’t leave the room.  Garda O’Dowd, another female Garda and the nurse were in the room too, she added.

“I had an issue with the two male Garda being in the room and they said I was refusing to give a sample and took me back to my cell,” Kelly said.

Kelly admitted she was very abusive and aggressive towards Garda O’Dowd but said she later apologised to the Garda for her behaviour and her apology had been accepted.

Inspector Mick Dwyer put it to Kelly that she had been very aggressive to Garda O’Dowd and to the nurse.

Kelly said Garda O’Dowd had called her “a little bitch” before placing her back in the cell.

Insp Dwyer told her she had been using foul language in line with her general behaviour at the time.

She said there had been no smell of alcohol from her but it came from other people who had been in her car.

“I was disorderly because of the way I was treated,” she added.

Kelly said she told Garda O’Dowd she bruised easily and didn’t want to give a blood specimen for that reason. She said she did offer on two occasions to give a breath specimen but was not given that option.

Convicting Kelly, Judge Aeneas McCarthy said a urine specimen is given in a toilet cubicle and not in a room.  He said he did not accept, for one moment, that two male Gardai would accompany a female to the toilet.

Mr Martin said his client had three children with another on the way.

He said she was separated from her husband and needed her car to bring her ill father to hospital regularly.  The loss of her licence, he said, would have a serious effect on her personal circumstances.

Judge McCarthy convicted and fined Kelly €300 for the drink driving offence and disqualified her from driving for four years.  He took the second charge of breaching the peace into account.

At Mr Martin’s request, the judge agreed to postpone the commencement of the disqualification until October 1. Leave to appeal the conviction was granted.

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Ireland’s leading youth organisation, Foróige, is calling on people in Galway to volunteer to become a big brother or big sister in the recently-launched ‘BigBrother BigSister’ campaign by giving up just two hours of their time per week.

Volunteers will hang out with and provide positive support to a teenager who has signed up to the programme. The whole campaign is centred on the idea that “you can’t change the world, but you can change someone’s world”.

The campaign is affiliated to the BBBS international programme and aims to support young people from age 10 to 18 by pairing them up with someone who would take on the role of a big brother or sister offering mentoring, guidance and friendship.

This particular campaign was launched in June of this year by Glenda Gilson and comedian Andrew Stanley. Foróige itself has been helping young people since 1952.

Volunteers who take part in the campaign will aim to help their little brother or sister with a variety of adolescent issues, offering advice and helping them manoeuvre through their teenage years.

“The programme helps steer young people away from the wrong path and point them in the right direction,” said Foróige’s Head of Marketing Aidan Haughey.

“The little brothers and little sisters are matched up with someone who shares their same interests and acts like a big brother or big sister, giving them advice, hanging out with them, taking them to games and generally giving them someone to look up to and turn to whenever they need it.

“Foróige also provide learning opportunities which enable youths to gain knowledge and develop new skills.”

Volunteers can sign up via the Foróige website at www.foroige.ie/BBBS and will go through a vetting process before being trained and matched up with a suitable little brother or sister.

“The volunteer will be facilitated to establish a supportive relationship with the young person, aimed at assisting them in their development, and will receive ongoing support from a staff member for the duration of their involvement,” said Mr Haughey.

“Volunteers then are asked to give on average just two hours per week to spend time with their little brother or sister.”

While the benefits for the little brother and sister are obvious, the volunteers who become big brothers and sisters will also benefit from the campaign.

“The volunteers very often gain a lifelong friend as well as helping to change someone’s life. It is ideal for those who want to help people or do something worthwhile without having to dedicate much of their spare time,” said Mr Haughey.

“The time given by volunteers is, on average, just two hours per week and can often be as simple as catching a movie or playing a game of pool. Volunteers can help build someone’s self-esteem and confidence and share their own experiences of growing up to mentor someone along the way.”

To get involved, contact Foróige at volunteer@foroige.ie or complete a form online. Clubs are supported by Regional Youth Officers and the Galway regional office is located in the Westside Community Resource Centre. Alternatively, you can call the Foróige Head Office at (01) 6301560.

■ More information on Foróige can be found at www.foroige.ie.

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