Investment funds figure for Clare ‘completely unfair’

Clare County Councillors Johnny Flynn and Christy Curtin have voiced their concerns that Clare might be losing out to Limerick City in the Draft Mid-West Area Strategic Plan.

The two councillors sought an updated report outlining the outcomes from submissions made by them and other elected members regarding the plan but in spite of requesting this in a motion tabled at last week’s meeting of Clare County Council, they are still awaiting an update.

 

Their motion was the “council request an updated report from the director of services, planning on the outcomes from the submission made by the elected members of Clare County Council to the Draft Mid-West Area Strategic Plan (MWASP) and the consequent motions to the Mid-West Regional Authority (MWRA) meeting”.

In a response to the motion, Gerard Dollard, director of services, said, “Following two workshops held on the July 23 and 27, a submission on MWASP was made by the elected members of Clare County Council to the Mid-West Regional Authority. This addressed a number of areas of concern. It is our understanding that when all submissions have been considered by the MWRA and the consultants, that a revised Draft MWASP will be issued for consideration.”

Councillor Johnny Flynn said there is an overemphasis on Limerick City and that despite Clare’s population representing approximately a third of the Mid-West Region, it had only been allocated 13% of the €150m allocated for infrastructure investment.

“That is completely unfair,” he said. He argued that investment was being focused on Limerick-based on population growth.

“Population has significantly decreased in Limerick by choice. People don’t want to live there. It’s a flawed strategy if they are basing all the investment around population growth. Limerick City has 57,000 population now, it’s a little bit more than double what Ennis is. That they are trying to double Limerick City’s by 2030 to 94,000 is ridiculous planning, so the whole thing is flawed,” he said.

He said by tabling the motion, he and Councillor Curtin were looking for a report back on “the rationale for either the adoption of our submissions or the reasons for refusal of these submissions”.

“If it comes back and I believe it isn’t fair to Ennis or to Clare, I’ll be voting against it,” Councillor Flynn said.
He argued that the cost of this report is €1.2m and as Clare County Council are paying a third of this, it was “not getting the value for its €400,000 investment”.

“It’s a bit like turkeys voting for Christmas if you are allowing a document that will influence Government investment up to 2030. The worst thing about it is they are setting themselves up; the implementation section of this is going to be done by a sub-committee of the Mid-West Regional Authority, it is not accountable and it is anti-democratic in my view,” he concluded.

Speaking to The Clare Champion, Councillor Christy Curtin said, “We got no written report back and it is a two-way process of consultation.

“We were looking for a report from the Mid-West Regional Authority. We are awaiting that. We made a number of submissions in relation to it. I was looking for the regional authority to support the renewal and development of peripheral areas in the region, such as West Clare. I also believe the national resources that this county has should be emphasised. I wanted the strategy to highlight the strategic significance of a number of networks of national, secondary and regional roads. West, Mid and North Clare are principally roads of strategic importance to tourism in the county,” he said.