Senator John McGahon- speech from 26 Feb 2021

Leader, the issue I would like to raise today is something I have spoken about in the last couple of months and it is in relation to urban regeneration funding and the reason I am raising it is because I would really appreciate it if you could convey to the Minister the absolute urgency to make a decision on urban regeneration projects around the country and I want to use my own example of Bridge Street and Lennon Hall Street in Dundalk for why it is so important to have at least the decision made known to the local authority and to people in Dundalk. Louth County Council submitted really substantial further evidence and information in April 2020 about why this is such an important project for the north end of Dundalk Town. We are nearly a year into that process and we have had no word back from the Minister yet. The reason why it is so important to actually get word back is because we need to know if it is successful or not and if it is not successful we and Louth County Council need to sit back down and look at where the project went wrong so we can put the extra bits into it to hopefully make it successful when the urban regeneration fund opens up again in the future. So the reason I am raising this now is to really ask you leader as leader of the Senate to convey to Minister O'Brien the urgency of at least having the decision made so we can know where we go from there because I just feel that we have been waiting around for too long now and I fully accept and I understand that Covid restrictions have slowed stuff down but I would really really appreciate it if you could convey that to the Minister and let us just get the decision made so we know whether we are successful or not. The same does not just go for my own town, it is for lots of other provincial times around this country that are waiting on this announcement.