Alison Comyn (Fianna Fail)

I wish to be associated with Senator Nelson Murray’s comments welcoming Pope Leo XIV. He is a great Augustinian. We have a tremendous association in Drogheda with the Augustinians there. We hope to welcome him to Ireland soon.

I will continue on the comments of my Meath colleague. As the sole Louth representative in the Seanad, it would be remiss of me, standing here in my county colours, not to congratulate the Louth senior men’s team on its tremendous win in the 2025 Leinster Senior Football Championship in Croke Park. Some 65,000 people were in attendance, which was the second-highest attendance at any football match in Europe this week, behind the Manchester United and West Ham match. It was a tremendous final. I congratulate the Louth manager, Ger Brennan, and the captain, Sam Mulroy. I also congratulate every mother, father, granny, grandad or whoever else who has stood by the edges of the pitches. We all know what the GAA brings to the community. This is bringing a tremendous lift to Louth, one for which we have waited 68 years. As the last time we lifted the Delaney Cup was in 1957, we welcome the win at the weekend.

As I am talking about the crest of a wave of pride and positivity, that is what we need to bring to Louth, and to Drogheda in particular. I would welcome a debate with the Minister for housing, Deputy Browne, regarding our funding from the urban regeneration and development fund. We have received great news that planning approval has been granted for the Westgate Vision project, which will clean up quite a poor part of the town centre. This will be exactly what we need for our heritage. We need developments and investments. We would also like to see, if possible, the town centre first heritage revival, THRIVE, funding, which is badly needed for Westgate House and the former Drogheda youth development buildings. A planning application for the project is currently going in. We have seen what our neighbours in Dundalk have done with this incredible funding of €7.5 million. The capacity is for funding of €7 million in Drogheda. Those two projects together would bring the exact amount of dignity, pride, positivity and investment that we so badly need.