Drogheda City Status Group's positive meeting with Junior Minister for Housing & Local Government

DCSG Chairperson Anna McKenna and PRO Anthony Murphy on their way to Dáil Éireann.

Representatives of Drogheda City Status Group (DCSG) had a very engaging and constructive meeting with Minister of State for Local Government John Cummins at Leinster House today.

The meeting was attended by DCSG Chairperson Anna McKenna and PRO Anthony Murphy, and by Minister Cummins, Deputy Paula Butterly and five advisors.

Minister Cummins had much empathy with Drogheda’s plight. He is from Waterford, which is a city – like Drogheda – that straddles two counties (Waterford and Kilkenny), and he understood the need to bring the “two sides” together to advance Drogheda’s situation. He also revealed that he has a relative living in Drogheda and was familiar with our situation.

With the Task Force for Local Democracy set to release its findings imminently, the Minster could not pre-empt or comment upon what those findings might be, as the process is entirely independent of the Government and its Ministers.

However, he listened intently as we outlined our case for a single Drogheda administration with a city manager. There was discussion about the abandonment of the Drogheda Joint Local Area Plan by Louth County Council and Meath County Council, and acknowledgement of the fact that under new legislation a joint plan called a Co-ordinated Urban Area Plan (CUAP) will have to be formulated by both councils.

He listened as we outlined evidence of the fact that LCC and MCC have not worked together enough to advance Drogheda. A recent Freedom of Information request revealed that there had been no correspondence at all between the two county councils on the matter of abandoning the Drogheda JLAP.

We also spoke about the Port Access Northern Cross Route (PANCR), pointing out that it had been first mooted in 1978, and that 48 years later only one of four phases has been completed, and a large chunk of the funding for that first phase was provided through levies on newly built houses in the area.

The Minister drew our attention to a new fund totalling €1 billion, of which the first tranche of €250 million is now available, the aim of which is to provide infrastructure such as roads, water mains, electricity connections, etc, for new housing development land.

We pointed out that Louth County Council recently committed to entirely funding a new link road in Dundalk, and that no such commitment was forthcoming in relation to the funding for the remaining three phases of the PANCR, and no clear indication of when the much-heralded road would be completed.

We thank Minister Cummins, Deputy Butterly and their teams for facilitating this meeting, and in particular for the Minister’s clear interest in our plight. We look forward to the publication of the Task Force’s recommendations, and indeed to engaging with Drogheda Municipal District councillors at a meeting later this week.

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