A little bit of history was made yesterday when the Chair and Coordinator of the Drogheda Implementation Board, Michael Keogh and Gráinne Berrill, met with local councillors for the first time.
The meeting was facilitated by Paddy Donnelly who is the Vice Chair of the Board and Director of Services for Louth County Council and took place just prior to the monthly council meeting in the Barbican Centre.
The Drogheda Implementation Board was established as a response to the Scoping Report on the effects of organised criminal activity on community safety and wellbeing in Drogheda written by Vivien Geiran, a former Director of Probation Services which was published early last year.
Michael Keogh outlined the status of the establishment of the Board and its’ subgroups to members, noting that while the Drogheda Report Implementation Plan was published in July the Board itself was established in late October.
He also gave a brief summary of the progress to date in relation to some of the actions in the plan. Elected members took the opportunity to raise a variety of issues of importance within the delivery of the Plan and to the community of Drogheda.
“The level of interest in and support for the work of the Drogheda Implementation Board amongst Drogheda Borough Council members was clear from this meeting and is reflective of the importance placed by the general community in Drogheda on the delivery of the actions in the plan” Mr. Keogh said.
“We will be meeting with public representatives on a regular and ongoing basis to ensure that they are up to date on the work of the Board and have the opportunity to feed into that work”.
The Drogheda Implementation Board team have also met with local TDs and are due to meet privately with members of the Laytown-Bettystown Municipal District in the coming days.
Mayor of Drogheda, Councillor James Byrne said he was delighted to welcome Mr. Keogh and Ms Berrill to the meeting with Drogheda Councillors.
“We were briefed on how the Board will oversee the implementation of the action plan following the Geiran Report recommendations.
“The Board is really only up and running since December (with the two outstanding Board members to be elected next week) and has less than two years to deliver on the plan” he said.
“We were assured by Michael Keogh that the Board will do everything in its power to implement the entire plan within this timeframe. It wouldn’t surprise me if the work of the Board continued beyond the two years in the form of another structure. There must be a long-term focus to support and protect our community from the scourge of crime.
“When we meet with them again – likely in April – we will be presented with its first six month report. It is a living document so deadlines may change for certain actions and it was refreshing to hear that the Board will consider working into the plan any worthwhile innovative ideas it is presented with.
Councillor Byrne did raise one note of caution however in that one of the two funds available to the Board won’t be exclusively for Drogheda.
“We will have to fight our corner for as large a share as possible from the €2m community safety innovation fund” he said. “The amount set aside from the dormant accounts fund set aside for Drogheda is only €250,000.
“There will be other avenues through the various Government departments and I hope that the call by the Minister for Drogheda to be prioritised for funding is heeded to ensure the actions of the plan are delivered on time and in full.”
The Drogheda Implementation Board will soon be launching a website where details of the Board and subgroup membership as well as updates on the work of the Board will be published.
In the meantime information on the Drogheda Implementation Board is available on the LMETB website at https://www.lmetb.ie/corporate/drogheda-implementation-board/.
