Gerald Nash (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for coming into the Chamber this afternoon to respond to me on this important issue. It is not just an important issue for Drogheda but also for the entire north east region, the region that the Minister of State himself represents .

A month ago this week I sat down to pour over the draft of the national planning framework. This, as we are all aware, is the successor plan to the redundant and discredited national spatial strategy, which was published in the early 2000s. Across this glossy 150 page production from the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government, there is not one single mention of Drogheda, which is by far Ireland's largest town. It is a very considerable achievement to draft a high-level document which will dictate on a statutory basis where jobs will be, where public services investment will go and where infrastructural development will be directed - for an entire generation - and fail to acknowledge even once the scale, size, population and, importantly, the potential of what is Ireland's contiguous population centre. The population of the Drogheda borough area itself has been confirmed by the Central Statistics Office in the last census in 2016 as being in excess of 43,000, and the extension of the borough boundary into County Meath, which I proposed, would include an additional 6,000 to 7,000 people at least. They are people who are living in housing estates in the area known as Drogheda, County Meath. In some cases, services are being delivered on one side of the road by Louth County Council and on the other by Meath County Council. That is an entirely inefficient way to do business. The agglomerated urban area of Drogheda is already larger than Waterford city, and it is important to point out that the population of the area now far exceeds the population of Galway when that city was given city status back in the 1980s. This draft plan represents a golden opportunity to do the right thing for once in this country, when it comes to policy development. It goes without saying that I love my hometown - I know the Minister of State loves his as well - and I want to see it reach its full potential.

Leaving those emotions aside just for a moment, I have always taken decisions based on robust evidence, as I hope my record in public life proves. All the available evidence allows us to present a very strong case for the town of Drogheda to be designated as a city. The way to advance this ambition is through the national planning framework process. Yet bizarrely, if the Government's proposals are adopted, the Drogheda area will now be lumped in with areas of a population size equivalent to Wicklow town - meaning no disrespect to Wicklow Town - or Tramore, or the 40 other population centres in this country ranked in excess of 10,000.

I am not asking for a favour, or making a special plea, for my home town and the area I directly represent. I am asking the Government to show that it is serious about transparent policy-making and accepting the evidence before it. I am asking that Drogheda takes its rightful place among the hierarchy of first-tier population centres, and is enabled to be the city that it can and should be.