The Health Service Executive has selected the temporary helipad in Shantalla Park as its preferred location for permanent aeromedical infrastructure, and local residents are not impressed.
More than 11 years after Galway City Council agreed to lend the HSE part of the community park for helicopter landings during renovations of University Hospital Galway, a new masterplan for the hospital campus has recommended upgrading the temporary landing pad to a top tier heliport.
This will involve taking nearly all of the open parkland up to the edges of the football pitch behind Arch Motors on Seamus Quirke Road, and building a heliport with a primary and secondary landing pad, two helicopter taxi pans, a direct pedestrian path into the hospital, and a trolley path to an ambulance bay for three vehicles.
In documents leaked to the Advertiser, health officials did consider a number of locations across Galway for emergency medical aviation, including Westside, Grattan Park, Corrib Park, and Dangan, but Shantalla Park and South Park (The Swamp ) were ranked higher on a number of metrics, with Shantalla being selected overall.
Shantalla scored highest for the HSE as the only site with “direct adjacency” to the hospital for rapid patient transfer, its suitability for the Coast Guard’s current, large Sikorsky aircraft, it necessitates no changes to UHG’s ongoing campus development, and it aligns with Galway's 2023-2029 City Development Plan.
Sites within the hospital campus, including the old helipad behind the Paediatric Unit, staff and public car parks, and the roof of the multi-story carpark, were also rejected.
Political reaction has been swift, with Shantalla native, Councillor John McDonagh (Lab ), calling the plan “outrageous,” and fellow city central ward representative, Councillor Frank Fahy (FG ), claiming the HSE has been dishonest over a decade.
“This is outrageous. If hospitals in Dublin can land helicopters on rooftops, why can’t Galway? Why is the HSE always reaching for the easiest solution? Even when it comes at the highest cost to local people? Innovation, not appropriation, is what’s needed here,” said McDonagh, who added that Shantalla residents have suggested a number of solutions to the HSE over the years.
“What was supposed to be a six-month temporary arrangement has turned into an 11-year stand-off. The HSE took over this community park in 2013 to install a temporary helipad during hospital construction. That was understandable - temporarily. But it’s now 2025, and the people of Shantalla are still waiting to get their park back,” he said.
“The HSE is trying to take public, open space by stealth,” said Fahy. “In 2011 I was told the HSE needed just a bit of the park for six to eighteen months. I was lied to,” he said. “This is one more reason why we need a new, state-of-the art regional hospital in Merlin Park with acres and acres for landing helicopters, instead of pissing about with the hospital in town, which is essentially just one big, cramped carpark.”
Nuala McCarthy, chair of the Shantalla Residents Association, said her immediate priority was to inform people about the new plans, which appear to assume the HSE will acquire three acres of parkland from Galway City Council.
“We are very concerned about these proposals. We will be keeping the residents of Shantalla informed, as we learn more, and will call a public meeting in due course,” she said.
Speaking to the Advertiser, local residents have questioned the precise legal ownership of lands next to the hospital campus, and timelines concerning when the Council transferred deeds to the HSE. Twenty years ago, a proposal was made for an underground hospital carpark to be located under Shantalla Park, allowing surface carparking in the hospital to become available for a heliport.
New aircraft
HSE documents record 644 “emergency landings” in Shantalla Park between 2022 and 2024, making it the busiest medical helipad in Ireland. Irish Coast Guard helicopters account for half of all flights. The majority of patients transferred have life-threatening STEMI heart attacks where time is a critical factor.
The Coast Guard’s large and loud Sikorsky S92 helicopters are currently being replaced by smaller, quieter and more efficient Leonardo AW189 aircraft. These require more refuelling stops as they have a shorter range, and upgraded Performance Class 1 landing sites.
Last week, RTÉ’s Primetime aired concerns about the suitability of these aircraft for West coast Search and Rescue (SAR ) missions, and that the type of stretchers they carry are not compliant with HSE regulations for Hospital Emergency Medical Service (HEMS ) flights.
