An interview with Galway County Council Chief Executive Liam Conneally

Liam Conneally, Galway County Council’s Chief Executive, gives his thoughts on his council’s priorities over the upcoming year and the future of local government in Ireland.

Liam Conneally, Chief Executive of Galway County Council in the Northern and Western Region of Ireland, is passionate about his work and community. “Galway is a great location,” he stresses. “My children are in college here, and they would agree with me: as a place to live and study, it’s fantastic. It definitely has the amenities you need from a recreation and cultural point of view, as well as having all of the opportunities available to gain work and enjoy yourself at the same time.”

Liam has been Chief Executive of the County Council for over a year now. A graduate of the University of Limerick and Queen’s University Belfast, he has degrees in public administration and town and country planning. His career background has been in planning roles for different Irish local authorities, as well as serving as the Director of the Mid West Regional Authority from 2008 to 2013. Prior to starting at Galway County Council, he was Director of Services at Clare County Council, a post which he had held since 2016.

“Chief Executive is a fantastic role, and it’s very humbling, the respect that’s given to the position and to local government in Ireland,” he says. “Something that maybe people don’t realise is the trust that’s given to local government by people and our communities. It’s important that we live up to that and that in everything we do, the public good and the affairs of our citizens are at the centre — and that at all times we strive to do the right thing.”

Immediate plans

Over the coming year, one of the key goals that Liam has for Galway County Council is making sure that the council remains responsive to citizen and customer needs. “The priority at the moment at a national government level is housing and ensuring that we reach our targets in social, affordable and other housing delivery areas and in Galway County we are currently ramping up our housing capital delivery programme”, he notes. “Also, we’re the delivery conduit for the National Town and Village Renewal Schemes, the vacant and derelict home grants and other assistance from a government point of view to bring vacant and derelict properties back into use and put life back into Galway towns and villages. This ambition is also supported by URDF and RRDF funds”.

Galway County Council is also completing a strategic workforce plan, with Liam noting that this will provide him and his management team with an evidence basis for council resources to be deployed into important service areas. “In addition, we are completing a Council digital strategy, the implementation of which will provide significant improvements in terms of how our citizens and our customers access our public services,” the Chief Executive says. “We’re redesigning our website, creating a platform that will focus on public service delivery and engagement; we will make sure that our website and digital platforms are appropriate for the publics’ needs and are easily accessible.”

Liam highlights the collaborative success that Galway County Council has had with the IDA in economic development promotion. Referring to US medical device firm Dexcom’s announcement of the creation of 1,000 jobs in Athenry, as well as the opening of Athenry’s BIA Innovator Campus. “The aim for me will be to promote the Galway Strategic Economic Corridor from Oranmore to Athenry and other locations such as Ballinasloe and Tuam, to ensure that we frontload infrastructure provision to allow proper access to that corridor and that we work with our main stakeholders (power, transport and water utilities) in that exercise — while making sure that we work in a strategic way with our elected members to achieve all of that.”

Liam also spoke about Galway County Council’s first tourism strategy that was adopted by the elected members in 2023. Implementing the first tourism strategy and developing Galway County as a tourism brand reflects the importance of tourism as a regional driver of economic, social and cultural regeneration, and the importance of Galway in this sector.

When it comes to crucial factors for ensuring a positive ongoing relationship with elected members, Liam stresses the importance of communication. “Communicate, communicate and communicate,” he advises. “I can’t overstate the importance of proper and regular communication with our elected members. Using the structures that we have in terms of the Municipal District structures, the Strategic Policy Committees (SPCs), the Corporate Policy Group and the ongoing work ensuring the SPCs remain strategic and policy-focused is also important.

“We need to listen to our elected members, to hear what they’re saying in relation to their priorities, understand what these priorities are and work with them to achieve those. The other piece is to understand the pressure that they’re under — because there’s a level of expectation on our public representatives that should never be underestimated — and to assist them wherever we can to do their jobs, because whether it’s realised or not, they take a lot of pressure from us, public servants and they know how to deliver results.”

“Our most important resource to get work done — and this might be portrayed as cliche, but it just can’t be stated often enough — is the staff that work in local authorities,” the Chief Executive adds. “The constant need for staff to meet new challenges requires constant upskilling and training, and that applies to elected members as well. That certainly will be a priority for me, not just in 2024 but in the coming years.”

Challenges to success

With regard to barriers that the Council faces in the achievement of its goals, Liam highlights a number of issues. “I think everybody is trying to keep pace with digitalisation and how we provide our services online,” he says. “Having resources — adequate funds for critical statutory functions as well as other non-statutory functions — is obviously always a concern. It’s also important that County Galway, as an investment location and a preferred location for economic development, remains competitive, so you’re constantly conscious of the fact that costs to businesses need to be at a level where they can survive and make profits. There’s constantly that balancing act between service provision and the cost of those services.”

On the infrastructure side, the N6 Galway City Ring Road received planning approval in December 2021 and was the subject of judicial review proceedings and has since been remitted back to An Bord Pleanála for further consideration.  In December 2023, the board requested further information on the Galway City Ring Road application and preparation for this request is underway. The Galway City Ring Road remains an absolute priority for the sustainable development of the county, city and region. And of course, the provision of housing, and sufficient numbers of new-build housing, is a challenge, but we will face any challenge head-on.”

Another area that Liam draws on is staff recruitment. “We’re in full employment in this country, and how do we in the public sector keep and make ourselves attractive to talent, to talent that’s much more mobile than it was in the past, and how do we promote ourselves as an employer of choice?” he reflects. “Competing for skilled labour is a real issue for us at the council, but so is competing with potentially higher wages in the private sector. How we sell ourselves in terms of our overall package is going to be really important to sustain future staffing levels.”

Despite these factors, the Chief Executive is optimistic about Galway as a growth location. “If I was to ask, having worked in seven other local authorities, whether there are significant barriers in Galway, I would say: ‘A lot less so than I would have encountered in previous employment.’ Galway is identified as a desirable location in which to live.

The bigger picture

This year marks 125 years of local government in Ireland, with the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898 introducing county councils and leading to the 1899 Irish local elections. Looking ahead, Liam forecasts that local government in the country will continue to be “a main factor in the delivery of public services”. “We will continue to deliver because that’s what we do really well, but we’ve also the ability to change when we need to,” he notes.

The Chief Executive adds that following the Local Government Reform Act 2014 (which enabled a major restructuring of local government in Ireland and allowed Irish local authorities to become more involved in their communities’ economic development), “in addition to wider community enablement local government has really taken on the economic development promotion area with both hands and run with it”. “I think the IDA and Enterprise Ireland would certainly acknowledge that, and I would say that our ability to zone and service the right land and frontload infrastructure to allow access and development on land is unquestionable,” he says. “The key thing for us, given the finite resources that we have, is where we prioritise and deploy those resources, and that’s what we’ve been good at certainly in the last number of years.” Liam also highlights the use of designated activity companies (which represent a company type in Ireland) and other innovative structures “to deliver regeneration projects of scale efficiently and effectively across the country”.

Another topic that Liam discusses is the role of local government in relation to climate change. In saying that, he is very conscious of climate change and how government reacts proactively to this very significant challenge. “The recent adoption of climate action plans and the preparation of these plans in a relatively short time shows the dexterity and can-do attitude of local government. These climate action plans will identify in a strategic way within our own work areas how we as a sector can deliver on our climate change actions,” he says. “Because of our changing weather patterns, more frequent and ferocious storms, this is a space in which local government will play a central role in the future. In a proactive way, I think we will be a channel for very significant national capital funding.”

While Liam will undoubtedly face challenges in his role as Chief Executive going forward, it is clear there are plenty of opportunities on the horizon for Galway County Council as well. With Irish local government celebrating 125 years in 2024, the past track record of delivery bodes well for Irish local authorities as they begin their next chapter.