CONFIDENCE BOOST AS MAJOR PROJECTS GET THE GREEN LIGHT
March 2000
DUNDALK gets a major boost when final approval is given for contracts to be signed for the building of a £6 million swimming pool and an £11.5 million office complex which will accommodate 380 civil servants.
Both will be located at the Millennium Centre, adjacent to the new County Hall, and on a site where a new £2 million health centre will also be built.
The long-awaited swimming pool needed Government approval of a £2.5 million grant and acceptance of tender documents.
That approval arrives clearing the final obstacle to allow work commence shortly.
Likewise, the offices get the green light when contactors John Sisk & Son are appointed.
The building will house staff from Revenue Commissioners, Departments of Agriculture and Justice, Office of Public Works and 150 workers from the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs, with 80 transferring from Dublin.
The new complex is being built as part of a decentralisation programme, and will cover 60,000 square feet.
It is expected that the offices will be ready for occupation in late 2001/ early 2002.
Minister Dermot Ahern says he has worked hard to progress the project.
‘I have taken all necessary action to ensure that this decentralisation move goes ahead in order to clear the way for a major decentralisation programme to be announced later this year which will benefit other towns throughout Ireland.’
Meanwhile, Mr Ahern points out the swimming pool will ‘provide the people of the north-east with the best facilities in the country and will be yet another boost to the new confidence in the area’.
He pays tribute to members past and present of Dundalk urban district council ‘for their constant promotion of this project and also for enhancing the proposal by including in the building a complete leisure facility’.
The eight lane, 25m by 17m pool, will be of competition standard, and will feature a view area for 250 spectactors, as well as a health and fitness suite.
The allocation of a grant of £2.5 million by the Minister for Tourism and Sport Jim McDaid ‘is the final piece in the jigsaw,’ according to county manager John Quinlivan.
He promises the council will do everything to advance the project as quickly as possible.
However, it is unlikely the pool will be completed by the end of the year, as originally anticipated.
Urban council chairman Cllr Séamus Keelan recalls that successive councils, going back at least 40 years when the late Joe Farrell was chairman, had mooted the idea of a swimming pool.
Different sites had been mentioned, including the Fair Green, Dowdallshill and, more recently, Muirhevnamór, but he feels the present site is ideal, particularly with a new road linking St Alphonsus Road and the by-pass.
‘It is great news for the people of Dundalk,’ Cllr Keelan adds.
‘ Together with the investment in new Government offices this all shows that Dundalk continues to make great strides over recent years.’