The picture above is an illustration of the neglect and lack of imagination by both central and local government when it comes to the development of Drogheda.
The Council provided a tap so that people tending graves in the graveyard at Newtown could put flowers in vases of water. Nice thought but it was installed about a metre away from the drain!
Not only that, but someone must have signed off on the handiwork! It’s been like that for years and every winter the place is a muddy mess.
In the greater scheme of things a misplaced tap is perhaps inconsequential but it is symptomatic of the “ah, sure it’ll do” mind-set in Louth County Council which, when applied to thousands of other small issues, impacts hugely on our lives.
The whole of Drogheda is reeling from the failure, for the third time, of the Council’s application for funding for the Northern Cross Route which is so critical for the town’s development.
Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien was so enthusiastic before the elections about the new road and the benefits it would bring to Drogheda and he says he still is.
But why, when he bypassed an arranged meeting with the Drogheda Councillors in November to visit with Joan Martin in County Hall, did he not voice his concerns about the application. Surely if the Minister responsible is keen on a project he should be able to guide it along.
You might also ask why, when Drogheda has three sitting TD’s does the level of service actually drop? It can’t all be the fault of the pandemic.
The Drogheda City Status Group has for several years been pointing out issues that badly need addressing so that Ireland’s biggest town can regain its rightful place as the republic’s next city.
They, and many other groups such as the Chamber of Commerce, are campaigning for inward investment to attract new businesses to the town to provide jobs locally to avoid the daily exodus of workers down the tracks and the motorway to the capital.
In one of their press releases some years ago the City Status Group pointed out that the transport systems work both ways but the overwhelming volume of traffic is southwards in the mornings. This is just one illustration of how a lack of imagination and investment is affecting people’s lives.
The list of improvements that need to be carried out is long and expensive to fix – housing, traffic chaos, road infrastructure, road tolls, lack of social amenities such as community centres, parks, playgrounds, cycle lanes, the list goes on…
Hopefully the latest failure of the Northern Cross Route will be a temporary setback but we have much catching up to do besides and it will require a huge effort and a sea-change in attitudes in Dail Eireann and County Hall.
The County Council is being starved of finance by Dublin to the extent that they can’t even maintain their current stock of public housing even though, as landlords they have a legal responsibility to their tenants.
Joan Martin’s frequent response of “there’s no money for that” when Councillors ask for work to be carried out is not because she’s begrudging but because she is not being given the wherewithal to manage the county.
Having said that the popular perception is that that the more to the North of Louth that you are situated the better the facilities you will enjoy.
If that is true is there a case to be made for amending the Local Government Reform Act brought in by Phil Hogan in 2014 and creating a new “County” which would take in the greater Drogheda area and East Meath?
Or would that create more problems than it solved?
