Bridge naming is discussed againg
A DISPUTE over whether councillors should d make a combined submission favouring the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy name and whether Kilkenny councillors should have a say on the bridge naming arose.
District manager Sinead Casey alerted councillors to the fact that the following Friday was the deadline for public submissions to be made. Both New Ross and Piltown councillors will have the final say on the iconic 887m bridge’s name.
‘I would encourage members to make individual - submissions. I think it’s important for New Ross that we step up to the bat so that we don’t get a silly name,’ a councillor said.
Cllr Anthony Connick then made a proposal to make a joint submission involving all eight councillors, something Cllr Michael Sheehan n disagreed with outright.
He said: ‘We have a committee in place and d ultimately the decision comes back to us here. I think we would be compromising ourselves to say we are going to pick this name. I certainly will not be supporting that.’
Cllr Connick said all eight members voted in favour of the name, which was initially floated by district director Eamonn Hore, following consultations with the Kennedy family.
Cllr Larry O’Brien said: ‘I would say that this has nothing to do with Kilkenny. The road is coming from Wicklow, through Enniscorthy on to here. We should have the naming of this bridge. There are a lot of people in Kilkenny stirring this up and we had people in the town stirring this up and on social media.’
Mr Hore said many submissions had been received already, adding that a steering committee will recommend four to six names to councillors to adjudicate on, once silly names with no real links to New Ross are discarded.
Mr Hore said when the Waterford bridge was being built Kilkenny councillors were involved tangentially in the naming process, but the ultimate decision reverted to the Deise elected members.
‘It’s not called the New Ross Bypass for nothing,’ he said, adding that he did not think a joint submission was wise, rather individual submissions.