Councillor Kevin Callan has poured scorn on a promise made by Minister for Housing and Local Government Darragh O’Brien that he will appoint a City Manager for Drogheda.

He says the Minister’s pre-election, which was made last week at the launch of the election campaign of FF candidate Alison Comyn, is nothing more than an empty pre-election promise and that nothing will come of it.

“In April of this year, this Minister confirmed through the parliamentary question process that city status for Drogheda was not under consideration.” Callan said. “Without city status there can be no city manager, the title is misleading and not accurate for a start.

“As some would say, it sounds great but get into the detail and it does not stack up. The minister's response a few months ago was that city status for Drogheda was, "not being considered".

“The Minister then visits Drogheda ten years after the abolition of Drogheda Borough Council and suggests we could have a City Manager. That's ten years of no legislation to bring powers back to a Drogheda based Council Structure that a City Chief Executive or Manager could run.

“There are several things wrong and concerning about the minister's announcement. Firstly, managers, city or county no longer exist in Law. The legislation changed a number of years ago and we now have city and county chief executives. From the outset this announcement is vague and lacks substance.

“So, for a City Manager or Chief Executive to be appointed, we would need an entity such as a City or Borough Council reinstated. The party that the Minister represents has taken no action to make this happen and now a matter of weeks before an expected general election, the minister is saying he is amenable to it.

“A City Manager would mean that Drogheda would need to be designated in Law as a city and move away from County Louth to collect its own rates, have its own bye laws and structures like housing, planning and operations departments. 

“The Local Government Reform Act of 2014 has set out the structures of Local Government and the repealing of this Act would be the first step before moving further legislation to create the system to facilitate a City Chief “Executive. The Minister has done none of this and he is the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage. It's his brief to have done this and he should have been doing it long before now.

“I am urging people in Drogheda to look back over the past ten years since the abolishing of Drogheda Borough Council and the lack of action by this minister to take the necessary steps to bring it back in the Oireachtas by repealing and creating laws to make this happen.

“This same minister promised us the Northern Cross Route and did not deliver causing the Council to have to step in and do the project with developers. He visited Drogheda before that election as well saying PANCR would be delivered and guess what, he didn't deliver for us then either.”