Potential for development examined at public meeting in Ballybofey

Future developments affecting the Twin Towns and surrounding areas were hammered out at a lively two-hour community meeting hosted by the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue TD in the Villa Rose Hotel, Ballybofey on Monday night.

The minister explained he hoped to hold meetings in various parishes on a rolling basis to listen to locals covering a variety of issues and give people an opportunity to contribute their ideas, thoughts or concerns.

Topics covered on the night included the Urban and Rural Regeneration and Development Funds, Ten-T Ballybofey-Stranorlar Bypass, defective concrete blocks scheme, the local ambulance service, the development of the Finn Harps Community Stadium, St Mary's National School, St Joseph's Hospital and an update on agricultural schemes.

He encouraged everyone to explore the potential the new Urban and Rural Regeneration and Development Funds offered adding Donegal had achieved some of the highest funding in the country under these schemes in places like Arranmore Island, Burtonport, Letterkenny, Buncrana,  Carndonagh, Letterkenny, Milford as well as the €9.7 million for Ballybofey under the SEED project to redevelop the centre of the town.

He revealed that McCabe Architects had been appointed as the lead architects for the design team and the project was moving towards planning with the potential start date for construction work scheduled for the second quarter of 2024.

Minister McConalogue said the work on the bypass project was ongoing and the next step was to get further government approval. He accepted it was a slow-moving project but it had to go through a number of processes.

In relation to the defective concrete block scheme, the minister said the new regulations will bring the new scheme into play and already 40-50 houses had been fixed over the past 12 months.

He admitted there had been a significant log jam over the past year involving Donegal County Council and the Department of Housing over the past year where applicants were not getting answers in relation to approvals for remediation because testing had revealed there were other substances and chemicals at play outside mica and pyrite that were contributing to the defective blocks.

He said this meant the council were not giving approvals for most of last year because the existing scheme was based on mica or pyrite. Since that had been sorted over 600 homeowners had been granted approval for further applications such as demolition or significant remediation.

Members of the public listen to the minister's talk at Monday night's meeting

"People are now in a position to engage with their contractors and now legislation provides that every year the capacity is there to update the costings involved because that does change. This is a scheme that is going to be in place for many years and things are going to change over those years so one of the key principles in it was it could be updated," he said.

He added he accepted the scheme was not perfect and there were many issues fought for but not got but he did believe the current scheme could deliver and if he saw an opportunity to improve it, he would.

Minister McConalogue also talked about the upgrading of the ambulance service which had now moved from 12-hour cover to 24-hour cover at its new base at St Joseph's Hospital, Stranorlar. He added they were also looking at the base in Lifford and hoped to build on that service as well.

He described as "very significant" the funding commitment the government had provided for the development of the Finn Harps Community Stadium. The plans for the 6,000-capacity ground with two enclosed stands were very exciting and already the government had provided €3.991 million for it under the large-Scale Sports Capital Infrastructure Scheme.

He added he was aware that the county council, the FAI and Finn Harps were coming together to put the additional funding in place.

"There has been a lot of engagement with the new Minister for Sport, Thomas Byrne and I'm expecting news hopefully in the next week or so to help take it to the next step and get the necessary approvals to move it on," he said.

The minister outlined the progress that had been made in securing additional funding for agricultural schemes which were important to a place like the Finn Valley. These included extra funding for CAP programmes, Targeted Agriculture Modernisation Schemes (TAMS), organics, forestry beef and sheep schemes.

He also welcomed the recent opening of the new St Mary's National School and praised all who had been involved in the project over the years.

Minister McConalogue also touched on the future of St Joseph's Community Hospital in Stranorlar.

He said there was "absolute certainty" regarding its future and an "absolute clear government commitment" to ensuring it continues in terms of both long-stay and short-stay bed places, all of which are at full capacity at the moment.

"There is a very clear commitment from the Government to invest over €1 million over the next short period of time into St Joseph's to bring it up to the necessary HIQA standards that will be necessary to see the existing level of capacity maintained, developed and continued into the future."

He pointed out this was also happening in all of the county's community hospitals.

"There is an investment programme ongoing and they are stepping it out one by one. They are expecting to appoint the design team for St Joseph's very shortly to do the necessary designs associated with moving on to construction and delivering on that €4 million investment."

He added alongside all the work on the community hospitals, there would also be a 100-bed community hospital built opposite the University Hospital in Letterkenny.

He reassured the audience that any proposal to reduce capacity at places like St Joseph's because of the Letterkenny project was now off the agenda.

"As time goes forward we are going to need significantly more capacity in the county and the key starting point in anchoring and protecting what we have, making sure it meets all the standards required then seeking to build on that as well," he said.

Local councillor Patrick McGowan said local people had a valuable contribution to make to many aspects of what the minister was referring to. He said roads were a big issue in this area while defective blocks also presented a major problem.

The meeting ended with a robust question and answer session covering the topics raised by the minister during the course of the night.