Muslims struggle to find places to practice faith

Muslims in Galway claim they are struggling to find locations to practice their faith after being told they cannot use a residential home on the outskirts of the city as a mosque.

An Bord Pleanála has refused planning permission to the Western Islamic Cultural Centre for the unauthorised use of a house at Mincloon, Rahoon, on the western side of the city as a place of worship.

The congregation had originally sought retrospective permission to use the building for assembly for prayer from Galway City Council last year.

The city authorities rejected the application which also generated strong opposition from some residents in Rahoon, who complained about the growing number of visitors to the building which had generated an extremely high level of traffic on an inadequate road network in a rural area.

The Western Islamic Culture Centre appealed the decision but An Bord Pleanála has upheld the council’s ruling.

Locals said the suggestion by the Muslim community that the use of the building as a mosque was ancillary to its main use as a dwelling was incorrect.

The primary use is as a place of worship involving at times a large number of persons, meeting a number of times throughout the day,” one resident said.

They complained that a loudspeaker was sometimes used at the centre, while meetings could start at 5am and finish at 2am.

The building has been the subject of a number of enforcement notices from the council over recent years due to unauthorised development of the site.

In its appeal, the Western Islamic Culture Centre said the site was the subject of a special zoning under the Galway city development plan 2017-2023 which allowed it to be used as a place of congregation and worship for the city’s Muslim community. (The measure was introduced as a material contravention of the plan by councillors against the advice of council planners.) The centre claimed the site was principally used as the residence of the local Imam.

“Gatherings occur at prayer times with social calls at other times,” said a spokesman.

The centre said there was a maximum of 10 people at most meetings, although the figure could be as high as 50 on occasional evenings.

Yesterday, a spokesman for the centre, said members of the Galway Muslim community was “very upset” at the ruling.

We have 2,000 Muslims and not enough facilities. People are asking why they are not being allowed to pray,” he added.

Council planners claimed 76% of the total floor area of the building was for communal activities which was therefore its primary use.

An inspector with An Bord Pleanála said the daily gathering of people at the property “cannot be considered to be informal or an irregular occurrence”.

The board said it was refusing planning permission because of the scale and extent of the non-residential use of the building.

It said the frequency of meetings and numbers attending gatherings “significantly undermined and compromised” the residential use of the building.

It also found the development could not satisfactorily dispose of the likely volume of wastewater that would be generated by the number of visitors, particularly because of its proximity to the Moycullen Bogs, a designated natural heritage area.