No need for fig leaves like the DART for Drogheda
UNDER the Project Ireland 2040 plan, the lion’s share of resources is given to the existing five cities, with two other regional centres identified, Athlone and Sligo, which will become the effective capitals of the Midlands and the NorthWest regions respectively.
Drogheda, the biggest town in Ireland and the natural capital of the North East region, is dumped along with Dundalk and Newry into a Dublin-Belfast economic corridor, with vague aspirations for cross-border development.
Just days before unveiling its 2040 plan, the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation published a report suggesting that our economy will shrink by 7% by 2030 as a result of Brexit, with exports to the UK 50% lower than current rates. Despite this, the 2040 plan effectively sees Drogheda’s economic future depending on trade with Northern Ireland, completely overlooking its potential as an ideal location for foreign investment and a motor of indigenous economic growth into the future.
The 2040 plan has completely stripped Fine Gael of any credibility with the people of South Louth and East Meath, with its representatives scrambling to hide the nakedness of their position with fig leaves like the DART to Drogheda. That will not wash with the people who live here. We need jobs and investment, not a second-hand plan for what Government clearly considers a second-tier town.
I will be meeting with Fianna Fail’s local government team in Leinster House to discuss the situation within the week so as to ensure that the concerns of South Louth and East Meath were heard at the highest levels of the party.