By Andy Spearman
Yesterday, October 10th 2022, will hopefully go down in the history of Moneymore and North Drogheda as the day the tide changed in favour of an area that has been badly let down since the first residents moved in some 40 years ago.
More specifically, it was the day when the Moneymore Consortium said to the various strands of Government: here we are, still providing vital services to a community that badly needs them from hopelessly inadequate buildings, now give us the community centre you promised us.
“We want the chance to finish what we started” is a line from a video about the Connect Family Resource Centre which was screened at yesterday’s launch, “We need a new centre!”
The Moneymore Consortium are the beating heart of the Moneymore and wider Drogheda Community, but the various chambers of that heart, CONNECT Family Resource Centre, Foroige Cable Youth Diversion Project, Moneymore Afterschool Project, Moneymore Community House and Moneymore Creche, are currently operating from different buildings which is far from ideal.
The campaign for a dedicated community Centre where the full spectrum of services offered by Connect FRC ranging from parenting support, mental health issues, addiction, domestic abuse, education, adult education and food security, as outlined by Co-ordinator Cliodhana Cunningham yesterday, has been ongoing for many years and their message has at this stage been accepted by all and sundry.
The provision of a community centre was a major recommendation of the Vivian Geirin report “Drogheda: Creating a Bridge to a better Future” which was commissioned by Justice Minister Helen McEntee.
They have been given a site for the new building by Louth County Council, and they have architects working on the plans for the new centre. All they need now is the money to pay for everything.
At yesterday’s event, which took place in the Droichead Arts Centre, the CONNECT Family Resource Centre presented their three-year strategic plan and local architect Adrian King from McKevitt King Architects presented their ideas for the proposed new community facility.
Pictured at the Moneymore launch yesterday were (from left): James McKevitt of McKevitt King Architects, Mayor of Drogheda Councillor Michelle Hall, Deputy Ged Nash, Connect FRC Co-Ordinator Cliodhana Cunningham, Adrian King of McKevitt King Architects and Chair of the Moneymore Consortium, Valerie Atherton. Photo: Andy Spearman.
Chair of the consortium Valerie Artherton, who is also a member of the Drogheda Implementation Board, said at yesterday’s launch that for far too long this country has been building social housing without also providing social infrastructure.
“This has got to change” she said. “Community facilities are essential public infrastructure. For too long it has been a failure of urban planning that expansive areas of social housing have been constructed without providing for the social, recreational, community and key service delivery hubs needed in all areas but especially in areas of deprivation.
“We have seen the consequences of housing developments with community infrastructure coming as an afterthought in Tallaght, Darndale and Limerick” she added.
“Do we ask if a library is essential, or a school, or a Garda Station?”she asked. “No, it is given that these are essential public services. Community hubs are equally essential and mind-sets have to change.
“In all the discussion about building more homes nothing has been mentioned about community infrastructure. Will it take another generation before it is finally realised that providing for community infrastructure is in the public interest?” Ms Atherton said.
