Public pays the price on land fiasco

THE disclosure Galway City Council is spending €400,000 a year in interest on vacant development land is an outrageous waste of public money.

What makes it even worse is the huge zone is lying idle during Ireland’s worst housing and homelessness crisis.

It is beyond belief a local authority can borrow €32million to buy land for social and affordable homes and then allow weeds to grow on it for more than a decade.

The deal was signed at the height of the property boom when prices were spiralling out of control but it was also obvious to many this could not continue.

It is the responsibility of councillors and public servants to evaluate such purchases to ensure taxpayers get value for money.

In this case the same land could have been bought for a fraction of the price just a few years later.

Galway is not the only local council to have got caught up in the disastrous land bubble which resulted in the property crash a decade ago.

Another local authority borrowed up to €12million to purchase a shop that is now lying derelict 10 years later.

This waste of public money has to end and systems must be put in place to ensure the individuals who make such disastrous decisions are held to account for their actions.