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Dunboyne Combined Residents Association
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FROM: Jim McGrath, Chairman, Dunboyne Combined Residents Association Tel: 01.8252189.Email: mcgrathjim@esatclear.ie I write as a witness to the recent flooding of houses and fields in Dunboyne, County Meath. The residents objected to the building of houses in swamp lands and flood plains in Dunboyne. They were thanked for their submissions by Meath County Council, the planning was approved, the estates were built and the floods came. On the same day that the floods hit the homes of our residents our local County Councillors voted for housing development in flood plains and swamps adjacent to Dunboyne village. No hydro-geological survey has been carried out and no hydrological study has been undertaken. To vote to rezone and build on these lands is irresponsible and a decision taken without essential information. The Dunboyne Combined Residents Association has submitted to Meath County Council reasoned objections to development on these flooded lands based on the "Strategic Planning Guidelines for the Greater Dublin Area". These guidelines constitute Government policy. To zone these flooded lands east of the railway line, together with others proposed rezonings in the area, could not only be in breach of these guidelines but would now also be indefensible because of the recent flooding disaster. The County Councillors have gone against the expressed views of the majority of Dunboyne residents which were submitted to Meath County Council over the past 18 months. These views were expressed in 1,600 individually signed letters and a vote by approximately 700 residents at a recent public meeting. All have been ignored. County Councillors have ignored the advice of Meath County Council planners in deciding to rezone and develop the recently flooded lands east of the railway line. People in Dunboyne are now asking, is democracy dead? To whom can they now appeal to stop this autocratic abuse being exercised within a democratic system? The Dunboyne Combined Residents Association has fully informed the Taoiseach who told them to refer their problems to Noel Dempsey, a local Meath TD, Minister for the Environment and Local Government, who told them to refer their concerns to local County Councillors. After asking Mary Wallace, local Fianna Fail TD, repeatedly over a period of nine months to meet representatives of Dunboyne residents, she eventually met them. She refused to exercise any influence in matters of zoning and planning inside or outside her Party. And so does not represent Dunboyne residents in these matters. At least John Bruton, another local TD, is giving some limited support. The local Fianna Fail Cumann is against the rezoning of the lands in question but their Fianna Fail County Councillors voted against them in Council. We are watching how the Department of the Environment will manage this appalling undemocratic, unrepresentative and autocratic process evolving in County Meath. What is happening is so unjustifiable and incomprehensible that very angry residents are asking, that in the absence of convincing reasons to justify the collaborative voting of the six local area County Councillors, is there an alternative agenda driving this process? We appeal to the Department of the Environment and Local Government, to the Government and the Oireachtas, to step in now and injunct this planning process so that a critical appraisal and investigative inquiry be undertaken. We ask those responsible not to wait and let those involved in this process to do as they intend, and then lamely follow through with a post factum inquiry of the kind that in the past has proved to be an inadequate instrument to punish or to compensate. Not to do so will doubtless have major implications for Party Politics in future elections, will deeply scar an already untrustworthy political culture and could well seriously damage participative democracy, but most of all will fail to prevent further and future damage to the homes and lives of Dunboyne residents. |
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