The row over the €9 million Eyre Square refurbishment has taken a new twist with a threat by the construction company which walked off the project to sue Galway City Council.
Galway City Council has said it is also taking legal advice, and has rejected claims made by the contractor, Samuel Kingston Construction Ltd, in a statement issued yesterday by the company.
Galway Chamber of Commerce has appealed to both sides to engage in dialogue, and to avoid a situation where the future of Eyre Square ends up in the courts, freezing any completion of the project.
Samuel Kingston Construction Ltd said yesterday in its statement it had instructed its solicitors to "take such action as is appropriate to recover from the city council damages for the council's breach of contract".
It accused Galway City Council of "repudiating" the contract for civil engineering works at the square, which it said it had "no option but to cease" on June 27th.
It said it had agreed to accelerate the works to complete them by November 2005, but this was dependent on no further delays by the engineer issuing instructions.
It was also dependent on "additional payments" being made to it by the council.
Galway City Council had "reneged upon its part of the agreement", the company said.
However, the city council has disputed this, and has said that all payments due and certified by its consultants were made.
It also says the acceleration programme was "not implemented" by the company.
The company had abandoned the site in the early hours of June 27th without any prior notice to Galway City Council, the local authority said in a statement.
Galway Chamber of Commerce chief executive Michael Coyle appealed to both sides to engage in arbitration to resolve their outstanding differences, and said the priority was the appointment of a new contractor to complete the refurbishment.
"A public war of words is no help to the businesses around the square who are down up to 40 per cent of annual business due to the disruption," said Mr Coyle. "We would ask the protagonists to engage in dialogue to avoid a protracted legal situation which would delay the project further."
A task force put together by Galway city mayor Cllr Brian Walsh (FG) heard that two of three construction firms which lost out on the original contract tender for Eyre Square had expressed an interest in finishing the work.
