The contractors building the Gort-to-Tuam motorway have refuted suggestions that they are not employing workers from the local area.
In fact, they said that there were almost 350 workers from the region employed in the €550 million project and a lot of local businesses were benefiting as a result.
It was claimed at a meeting of the Athenry-Oranmore Municipal Council that there were very few local workers employed in the scheme which commenced around the middle of January.
Several councillors referred to very few Galway people being employed in the motorway project which is expected to be completed by early 2018. When completed there will be a continuous motorway connecting Tuam with Limerick city.
But a spokesman for Direct Route, the consortium appointed to build the motorway denied that this was the case. In fact, he said that there were a lot of workers from the region employed in the project.
“I can’t comment on where their information is coming from. The fact of the matter is that the majority of workers on the site are from the region and more than 330 were employed at the end of June,” the spokesman added.
However, members of Athenry-Oranmore Municipal Council are furious claiming that those constructing the motorway are employing agency workers and there were very few of them from County Galway.
It was suggested that a clause should have been put into the contract insisting that local workers be prioritised when it came to recruiting.
The matter was raised by Cllr. Jim Cuddy who said that it was “an absolute scandal” that there were very few Galway workers on the project.
He said that a scheme that should be worth so much to the local economy had let available Galway based workers down. He described it as unacceptable.
“This is a huge project, but the fact that there are so few local workers employed by the consortium is an absolute scandal and this situation should have been addressed at the outset,” Cllr. Cuddy added.
Other councillors were in full agreement with the sentiments including the Chairperson, Cllr. Martina Kinane, who also expressed frustration at the lack of Galway workers on the 57 kilometre motorway scheme.
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