More than half of people think that Galway’s city and county councils are doing a good job according to a new survey.
The National Oversight and Audit Commission has released the results of a new survey on people’s satisfaction with their local councils across a number of areas.
The Satisfaction survey was produced in two stages with the 10 largest councils, including Galway County, surveyed in 2018 while the remainder were surveyed this year.
Overall 59 percent of people said that they were satisfied with the city council, while the county council had a satisfaction rate of 57 percent.
Both of those are just on either side of the national average of a 58 percent level of satisfaction with the local authority.
One area in which Galway ranked very strongly with the public was is in public perception of the work they do to promote economic activity.
Both Galway councils were in the top three three ranking of local authorities for promoting economic activity with the city in third with a satisfaction level of 71 percent while the county council topped the polls at 79 percent.
However the public had a less favourable outlook on the value of their spending with only 29 percent of people thinking either council provides value for money.
The largest gap between the two Galway authorities was in how well informed people felt by their council, with 46 percent of people satisfied with the county compared with just 33 percent in the city.
In the area of Openess and Transparency the county council had a 30 percent satisfaction rate while the city council’s was 40 percent.
Overall 51 percent of people felt that the county council was doing a good job, a sentiment shared by 52 percent of people in Galway county.
The survey also examined how people felt their council was doing on the provision of specific services.
For instance, 92 percent of respondents felt positively about the job the city council is doing on parks and playgrounds.
However just 30 percent of people in Galway city thought the council was doing a good job on the provision of affordable housing.
While 83 percent of people agreed with the statement that the city council is “working to make the area cleaner and greener”, 10 percent higher than the national average.
