NATIONAL PLAN IS REVEALED
PROJECT Ireland 2040 has been described as ‘ a missed opportunity of a generation for Drogheda’.
Drogheda Seanator Ged Nash said the much hyped plan had essentially given the ‘ last rites’ to City Status for Drogheda and claimed it does not contain a single new idea or fresh innovation for the development of Drogheda.
‘Behind the spin, it is a case of ‘as you were’ for Drogheda,’ he said. ‘ Spin wins over substance. Put simply, there is absolutely nothing of significance for Drogheda in this project. This plan changes nothing and contains no evidence of any real ambition for the town.’
He said the commitment given in the plan to the development of the M1 Economic Corridor and the Drogheda-Dundalk-Newry network are ‘anything but new’ and are already to be found in such programmes as the Action Plans for Jobs and other policy initiatives from this and the previous government.
‘ These proposals are merely a restatement of existing national and local government plans and policies packaged together and tied up with a shiny new bow. To present all of this stuff as new and imaginative is an insult to the intelligence of the people of Drogheda.
‘ THE people of Drogheda were fooled into thinking that this process would be informed by evidence and facts, but as the decision to provide a form of city status to Athlone and Sligo and not Drogheda shows, it was political influence that won out in the end.’