‘WEXFORD HAS NEVER BEEN MORE UNITED’
WEXFORD COUNTY COUNCIL CEO TOM ENRIGHT TELLS DAVIDLOOBY ABOUT THE HUGE COMMUNITY EFFORT AND POSITIVES COVID HAS BROUGHT AND HOW COUNTY CAN AND WILL BOUNCE BACK FROM ITS CURRENT DIFFICULTIES
bring this virus under control and hopefully we’ll see that happening over the coming days and weeks, but at the moment we have seen a particular spike in Wexford; it’s a second wave that has higher numbers than the first wave.’
150 cases were recorded in April at the height of the first wave, compared to 250 cases in mid-October. ‘We are seeing a much more rapid and sharper growth in the number of people infected now than we saw at the height of the first wave.’
With the country in varying states of restrictions and businesses operating on vastly reduced turnovers, Mr Enright said: ‘It’s difficult to plot the path for the next couple of years. If you asked me in February to plot the path for the next couple of years in the county I could have done so with a lot more confidence. We would have seen Enniscorthy start to do better in early spring – the feedback from retailers and townspeople was that the town was starting to improve. In New Ross, in the early stages after the bypass opened, the town was starting to do better and the local economy was improving. Employment was at a high level (across the county) and our plans for various projects under our Economic and Community Development programme were all being delivered.’
He said the development and roll-out of the council’s €200m plus economic plan is more important than ever.
‘Our plan is focused on driving employment in the county, making Wexford a better tourist destination, providing better community fawcilities across the county for people: those things are needed now more than ever and it is our role to drive on that economic plan. I think government has learned from the last major recession with the bank crisis in 2008. At that time we went through a period of austerity where government funding was cut back hugely and very little was done in terms of infrastructural investments. I think we’ve learned that’s not the way to get out of a recession; the best way is to invest in the future and put in the public infrastructure that is needed and in many ways the best time to invest in infrastructure is when the economy is at a low that is a time that the construction industry needs a boost, it’s a time when prices are lower and you get better value for money. It’s a time when you give employment to people when employment might be falling off.’
Major investment in social and affordable housing, in tourism, in roads projects, in new business parks are all on the horizon.
‘All of these need that investment now more than ever. We are seeing funding coming through at the moment for our projects which is great to see. We have applications in with the Urban Regeneration Fund. We have an application in for Trinity Wharf for €17m and for €5m for the town centre project in Templeshannon, Enniscorthy. We would hope that that funding will come through and will allow us to move those projects on.’
He said the council has made good progress on the projects they said they’d deliver on. Included in these are Carrigfoyle walking trails in Forth Mountain which will open to the public in November. Work on the Wexford Arts Centre extension and refurbishment is also set to begin in November, while the tender process for the access road and services for the €120m Trinity Wharf is beginning this week.
‘In New Ross the Greenway is under construction. We have got tenders in over the last week for the High Hill park and the site of the old Royal Hotel. That’s a €2m project which will be starting in the next few weeks. Also in New Ross we have the advance factory which will be under construction by the New Year so these projects will be proceeding as we had planned. In Enniscorthy we are just finishing off work on the civic buildings in the Market Square. This will cost around €1m for better public offices to serve people in Enniscorthy. Work is beginning next month on a €1m link road in Kilmore Quay to a new marine business park.’
Advance works for the first building at Enniscorthy Technological Park are also set to begin.
‘We already have a number of companies committed to it and they are not frightened by what’s happening with the current pandemic. The St Walleran’s site in Gorey which the council bought from Nama last year, is being masterplanned. It will provide affordable housing for young people because in the north of the county housing is more expensive than it is elsewhere and it’s harder for people on modest incomes to get their own house. We see a great opportunity for a mixed use development of affordable and social housing, housing for the elderly, public amenities, sports amenities and facilities and sites for one or more schools as the population grows in Gorey so there is plenty of room in the 74 acres we own there.’
Planning for a huge greenway project linking Rosslare to Waterford along a closed railway line is being advanced. The 56km greenway will bring visitors to south Wexford – connecting to Waterford across the Barrow Bridge. ‘It will link in at the last bit of the New Ross Greenway in Ferrybank but it’s a separate line the whole way. It’s a €35m project. We are going to planning for that to An Bord Pleanala.
‘Outdoor pursuits are needed now more than ever because people want to go out and get
FOR Wexford County Council CEO Tom Enright, 2020 has been a year of great challenges but also huge possibilities, as he drives forward with a programme of capital works running into the hundreds of millions to position Wexford as a dynamic modern county.
When word of the Coronavirus reaching our shores hit in the early spring, the county council books were in the black and there was an expectation that revenues would be stronger than ever in 2020.
Over the course of March, April and May it became clear that the local authority finances would be decimated when it came to car parking revenue, rates and rents/ mortgages.
Reflecting on that first wave, Mr Enright said: ‘From February we knew that the problem was starting to grow in the country. People were very much fearful of what was happening and seeing what was happening in other countries, particularly in Wuhan in China where it originated and places like Italy and Spain where the numbers started to grow rapidly and the death rate was growing. Then in the middle of March when the Taoiseach made his announcement closing down a lot of society with the measures that were put in place that’s when our role kicked in in terms of working closely with the HSE and the gardaí in having an effective response in the way the crisis was affecting people in Co Wexford, particularly older people who had to isolate and vulnerable people who had to stay at home.’
The task was how to provide these vulnerable people with food and getting their medication to them while ensuring they were also supported mentally.
A call centre was set up through the council’s customer services unit. ‘It was run 12 hours a day, seven days a week and provided supports through a huge volunteer network on the ground, particularly through the 49 GAA clubs who were hugely supportive through their volunteers. We would take the messages here in the call centre from people who needed food and medication. Then we’d activate the volunteers on the ground who would go and deliver those supports to people. We had older people who weren’t able to cut their grass, who weren’t able to walk their dogs so volunteers in the community did all of that great work and ensured those people were provided with all this support.’
Council staff also worked with Alone who assist older people in ensuring their mental wellbeing.
‘They provided support to people who were isolating because of the lockdown. We were hugely heartened by the support that was there. We had a lot of people running up here offering their support. We had to say that we were OK for the moment. There was a huge outpouring of support from members of the public, volunteers, organisations throughout the county that wanted to do their part and even with the staff in the county council, there was huge support from the staff who wanted to help. We had a number of staff who wanted to go working with the HSE to go help them.’
More than 100 staff volunteered to transfer to the HSE to do contact tracing and helping to operate and manage testing centres.
‘We operated a call centre over the weekends, outside of normal working hours. What we did here differently from other counties with our call centre and we had one of the highest call numbers in the country. This was because we were ringing out to vulnerable people to check on them every couple of days whereas the other call centres were just accepting calls in. A lot of these older people that were isolating they were delighted with that service. They knew there was somebody there at the end of the phone. They knew there was somebody who was going to ring in and check in on them. It gave those people who had no visitors, nobody calling to them; it gave those people somebody to talk to every couple of days as well. That was really welcomed by those people who felt very isolated and very frightened by what was happening.
‘In February and March there was huge fear. People saw us setting up a temporary morgue in Johnstown Castle. They saw what happened in Italy with army trucks and people were hugely frightened.’
Mr Enright said as a public authority, when emergencies occur, Wexford County Council leads the response.
‘We did that with the flooding we saw in Enniscorthy a couple of years back. We did it when the whole county was shut down with snow a few years back. We are used to stepping in when these challenges and emergencies happen. It’s not new to us but I’m fortunate that we have a great team here with us in the council who respond without question.’
He praised the county councillors, describing them as being very supportive, adding that the relationship between rate payers and the council has improved.
‘We are all in this together and we do understand the struggles of businesses at the moment and we are here to support them as best we can. I do think that there is a recognition in the county’s business community of the benefits of investing in our economic community programme and if we can make this a more vibrant county all of the businesses will benefit from that. If we increase employment all of the retailers will do better and more houses will be built which benefits the construction industry so people do understand that the things we are trying to do here will make the county better over time.’
He said the county’s people have never been more united and people are appreciating what they have more.
‘You talk to people who live in a city and see how confined they are living in apartments without the outside space and amenities we have so people are aware of how lucky we are to live in a county like Wexford. When you can’t meet friends and family people are starting to appreciate that more as well. And the staff of the HSE and in nursing homes who have seen residents die and how hard it has been for relatives who haven’t had the opportunity to say goodbye to their loved ones. The county has been through a traumatic period but we will get through this and come out stronger at the end.’
At the time children were thought to be a vector for the virus. Consequently Wexford County Council closed its playgrounds. ‘We did this before we got the national direction to do so because we heard that children were a away of spreading it but now we’ve learned since that children are not a vector to any great extent of the virus and we have seen since the schools reopened. We haven’t seen a spike in cases because of that. We know a lot more about the virus than what we did in March. If you said to people six, eight months ago that most people would be wearing masks in the country, most people wouldn’t have believed you. People used to scorn at people in the Far East wearing masks and now it’s common practise with us and it looks like it’s going to be with us for a while.
‘The world has changed in the last six months. How we deal with the virus has changed. We still have a huge problem with this virus. We see now the latest figures in Wexford how there is a resurgence of this virus in Wexford moreso than what we saw back in March, April and May and that’s a worrying trend. It’s down to every individual to take action to try and ensure that they comply with all of the rules that are in place because it’s individual responsibility that’s going to
THE COUNTY HAS BEEN THROUGH A TRAUMATIC PERIOD BUT WE WILL GET THROUGH THIS AND COME OUT STRONGER AT THE END