Local Labour Party petition in support of Drogheda City Status Group
Drogheda has lost out on €100m from The Irish Strategic Investment Fund due to its lack of city status. That was one of the startling revelations by Deputy Ged Nash today as he and his Labour Party colleagues presented the Drogheda City Status Group with a signed petition today indicating their support for the change in status.
The petition was also signed by Labour Party Senator Annie Hoey and Labour Party Councillors, Pio Smith, Fiachra MacRaghnaill and Elaine McGinty.
Mayor Michelle Hall said that it was now an appropriate time to give the City Status for Drogheda project a boost, in light of the release of the Census 2022 Preliminary population figures, released earlier this summer.
”The recent Population Data shows continued growth, in the region of 10%, in the Drogheda area since Census 2016. We only need to look around us to see that this growth is set to continue.
“We have the housing projects commencing in the area of the Northern Cross route on the North side of Drogheda, coupled with the continued infill housing to the south of Grange Rath that extends southwards to Donacarney and Mornington.
“It is vitally important that we prepare for the proper Infrastructure of Transport, Housing and associated Water and Sewerage, Health Care, as well as catering to the Educational needs of a young and growing population. We need to see a planned progression of Drogheda to full City Status, in the near future, in order to co-ordinate all of these needs properly” she said.
Labour Party spokesperson on Finance, Deputy Ged Nash, said that City Status is very important for the maximum Economic progress of the area in the next 10 years.
”I was very disappointed that Drogheda Urban was ‘strategically excluded’ from the Department of Enterprise and Employment (DETE) Grant Aid Mapping agreed with the European Commission in the Spring of this year.
“This disappointment was further compounded in mid-June when a €500 million fund for ‘Ireland’s five cities’ – €100 million each – was announced by the Irish Strategic Investment Fund, a subsidiary of NAMA.
Drogheda was snubbed again, and this would not have happened if Drogheda had City Status” he said.
On accepting the petition forms, Anna McKenna, said she was delighted with the Labour Party initiative to support the City Status Group and to give the campaign a timely boost, so that a new petition can be presented to the Oireachtas in the very near future.
She thanked Labour Party member Pat McDaid for his direct approach in getting Labour Party support for the campaign now and for co-ordinating the obtaining of a signed petition from every elected Labour Party Representative in the Drogheda area.
”The Drogheda City Status Group will now endeavour, without delay, to get the same level of support from all of the other local Elected Representatives in the area, whether Political Party affiliated or Independent” Anna McKenna said.
“We will shortly re-launch our ‘Citizen Signature’ campaign, and we would call on anyone out there who would like to help us with that to get in touch” she added.
