Dear Mayor McGarry

I write this again as I don’t recall getting a response to my previous mail of 30/09/2009, and after hearing you on George Hook today attempting to defend your council’s decision to reopen O’Connell Street, I have some important points to make:

Re: your interview on The Right Hook today:

Do you think your “silent majority” might stand up? I was in the Glasshouse last night and I didn’t see or hear one of them. Not one! Its obviously an invisible majority too.
Or perhaps its a figment of your imagination. In fact, the entire room of over 100 people was in favour of keeping O’Connell Street pedestrian.

Your dismissal of the petition with 2850 signatures was interesting, considering that you went public in the Irish Times in September to say the council’s decision had been made – all BEFORE THE END OF THE PUBLIC CONSULTATION PROCESS which is obligatory in the 2000 planning act AFAIK. So this reopening of O’Connell Street could be illegal then, then couldn’t it? In fact our MEP Marian Harkin has stated as much and has petitioned the minister of the environment to look into it.

I would like to inform you that the facebook page “Walking Down O’Connell Street” www.facebook.com/oconnellstreet now has…. 2,192 fans – More votes than you ever got. & Its growing by a couple of hundred a day.

All this talk about O’Connell Street being dangerous after dark is complete spin. Surely its your job to make sure the street is properly lit! And it is far from crumbling! What you said is a total fabrication. Yes it is quiet, since it is mostly daytime shops rather than pubs now. But its not dangerous or crumbling. And we have three businesses that have tables on the street (for which they have paid substantial rates incidentally), Bistro Bianconi, Hargadons, Café Fleur and shortly McGarrigles will reopen with food and drink again too. A pedestrian environment is essential for these businesses, and the street, to survive and encourage other similar business to open on that street, enhancing our city’s night-time atmosphere further.
Also, re: your point that you and the other councillors were elected earlier this year – as if that gives you the mandate to ignore our present “rebellion”: We voted you in before we realised that you were going to completely ignore us with regards to O’Connell Street.
I am an east ward resident please so don’t believe those who will tell you that all east ward residents want O’Connell Street open because they are suffering more than anyone else in the current traffic system. I would rather my journey take a little longer than have no pedestrian centre in town. You and the other councillors are just deflecting from the fact you copped out of making the right decision on an eastern bridge route.
The re-opening of O’Connell Street will only move the current rush hour tailbacks a few metres one way or the other. If anything, it will make the problem worse, creating a new junction where 2 busy streets will meet, O’Connell Street and Wine Street.
If the reopening goes ahead it will also make the street a very dangerous place for pedestrians during the busy Christmas period.
I love Doorly Park, the area where the proposed eastern bridge was mooted. I walk and cycle there with my children there daily. But I still believe that an eastern bridge is the only long term solution to east Sligo’s traffic problems.
So Sligo councillors, I demand you stop deflecting from the real issue and FIND A ROUTE for the bridge. It is your responsibility to find a solution.

Yours sincerely,

Eddie Lee