Louth Labour TD Ged Nash says people need to face the reality that Drogheda will not be granted city status under the current Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael government, urging the town to “stop pretending otherwise”.
He said this is not a political attack but “an objective fact”, arguing that creating new cities in Ireland would require major reform of local government, something he believes this coalition has no intention of pursuing.
According to Deputy Nash, if a proposal is not included in an election manifesto, it does not make it into a Programme for Government, and city status was never part of Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael’s commitments.
“It won’t be done. This is just a fact, even though all local government representatives see the merits of the idea,” he said.
Labour included a legislative pathway to city status for large urban areas such as Drogheda in its 2024 General Election manifesto, something Nash says no other party offered.
He also said recent replies to his Parliamentary Questions show the Government has shifted from a direct “no” on Drogheda becoming a city to avoiding the question altogether.
“We got used to an outright dismissal from the previous Minister, Darragh O’Brien. At least he was honest,” he said. “The new Minister, James Browne, will not even engage with the issue.”
Nash said the latest response he received “does not even contain the word city”, instead repeating Drogheda’s position in the National Planning Framework.
“Nowhere does it address the governance problems the city status campaign is trying to fix,” he added.
He also criticised changes in the 2024 Planning and Development Act which he says have stalled progress on the long-awaited Joint Local Area Plan for Drogheda, first recommended in the 2017 Boundary Review.
“Believe it or not, the reply to my very specific question avoided the question entirely. It is clearly not on the Minister’s agenda,” Nash said.
He added that Labour was the only party in the last election to commit to the level of reform needed to create new cities.
“It is clear this will not happen in the lifetime of this government. We will all keep campaigning, but we have a responsibility to be honest with one another and face this uncomfortable fact.”
