Winter Newsletter

ALAN

Edition 5, Winter 2012

FARRELL TD Working for you in Dublin Fingal

www.alanfarrell.ie

DUBLIN FINGAL NEWS Dear Constituent, As we approach the end of this year, I am looking to the new year with a renewed commitment to ensuring that this country will continue on a path towards recovery, growth and job creation.

The process of recovery and renewal is deeply challenging, as is the process of planning for the future in a time of fiscal constraint.

Dublin Fingal is one of the fastest growing populations in Ireland and one of the youngest communities in Europe. By 2016 there will be an extra 80,000 children in this country looking for a school place. This work begins now, so that the Irish people are not brought from one crisis into another.

While this is a challenging time, Ireland is on track for economic recovery. In the last three months there have been announcements of up to 2,500 jobs, the majority of these created through our Enterprise and IDA centres. Job creation will be further supported in 2013 as local government is now poised to play an increasingly active role in the creation of employment locally. The Gathering 2013 will raise our profile internationally, and it is Fingal’s opportunity to showcase its tourism potential to the rest of the world.

As always, if I can be of assistance to you or your family please do not hesitate to get in touch. In addition, if you wish to subscribe to regular updates please email subscribe to alan.farrell@oir.ie

Alan

The Gathering 2013

Fund of €2m announced for The Gathering Event organisers in Dublin Fingal can now apply for funding to maximise impact for events and festivals for the The Gathering 2013, as an additional €2 million has been supplied by the Government and IPB Insurance for local events around the country.

Councils can administer grants of between €25,000 and €60,000 to support three flagship events in their area, and grants of between €500 and €2,500 for other community events.

1,000 events have already been confirmed nationally. It is estimated that these additional funds will help to support a further 700 events nationwide.

It is hoped that this will bring an additional 325,000 tourists to Ireland next year.

This will not only have benefits for tourism in Dublin Fingal but it should also bring enhanced opportunities for the business community in terms of forging links and relationships for future trade.

Yours sincerely,

I would encourage all residents to check the online calendar of events in the upcoming weeks and get involved in your local initiative.

This website will be viewed all over the world.

It is an international platform to showcase the events in our community.

The majority of events will be run by volunteers and I urge everyone to play their part.

Minister Michael Ring TD with Alan Farrell TD, Cllr Anthony Lavin and MCC officials at Malahide Cricket Club which will be hosting a large Gathering event in 2013.

www.thegatheringireland.ie

Take part in The Gathering 2013 for Dublin Fingal The Gathering 2013 is a fantastic opportunity for Dublin Fingal residents to demonstrate all we have to offer. It’s a genuine excuse to bring friends and family home or to encourage those who merely have an interest in Ireland and Irish culture to pay us a visit.

Fingal County Council has been working hard to ensure that this opportunity will bring Fingal to the fore of Dublin’s tourism trail, particularly due to its proximity to Dublin Airport.

There will be a calendar of events for residents to view online and plan ahead. Three of the main attractions for Dublin Fingal will be the annual Fingal St. Patrick’s Day Parade, Flavours of Fingal which was an extraordinary success in 2012, and the hosting of the English Cricket Team in Malahide Cricket Club.

For regular updates please email ‘subscribe’ to alan.farrell@oir.ie

Alan Farrell TD - Working for you in Dublin Fingal

Schools Update!

Four New Special Classes for Dublin Fingal Four new classes have been established in Dublin Fingal for children with special needs, following an announcement by the National Council for Special Education.

From September 2012, two classes for children with special needs was established in Holywell Educate Together Primary school in Swords, one in Bracken Educate Together in Balbriggan, and a Post Primary class in Donabate Community College.

These classes have lower pupil-teacher ratios than mainstream classes, ranging from one teacher for six pupils to one teacher for eleven pupils.

These classes will enable students with special needs to transition from primary to post primary settings. While most of these classes have been allocated at primary level, there has been an increase in the number of special classes available at post-primary level.

Nationwide, there will be 91 new classes for children with special needs opening by the start of the school year. This is

Pupils from St. Oliver Plunketts pay a visit to Leinster House

an increase from 33 in 2011.

This is a very important announcement for Dublin North.

We have growing population and therefore require extra provision for children with special needs to be educated and progress in a mainstream school along with their peers.

St. Oliver Plunkett National School, Malahide

Alan visits Holywell Educate Together while under construction

St. Oliver Plunkett’s has received planning permission from Fingal County Council to proceed with plans for the rebuild of the school to bring the number of classrooms to 35, and to

modernise the facilities and replace temporary prefabs. This is a very welcome development due to the long delays in this process that resulted in the school rebuild not being placed on the School Building Programme 2012 – 2015. Now that the development and planning issues have been resolved I am working very hard to lobby the Minister for Education Ruairi Quinn for its inclusion the basis that it has been in the pipeline for some time and due to the necessity of the works for the pupils and the community.

For regular updates please email ‘subscribe’ to alan.farrell@oir.ie

Dublin Fingal to gain from Local Government Reform Radical local government reform measures announced recently will save the taxpayer €420 million while also increasing representation for people in Dublin Fingal.

Dublin Fingal will gain from the changes that involve a rebalancing of representation, compared to the current system which was based on demographics from 1989. As things currently stand each Councillor in Longford represents 1,857 people, while each Councillor in Fingal County represents 11,416 people. Nationally, the number of Councillors will be reduced by 42%.

This change will address the under representation of Fingal at council level as numbers of councillors will now be assigned according to population. ‘Fingal is one of the fastest growing communities, and one

of the youngest, in Europe, and therefore requires adequate accountability and representation.

Reform will be carried out under four main themes; Structures; Funding, Accountability and Governance; Economic Development and Job Creation; and Delivering Services Efficiently. All reforms have been outlined by the Minister for Environment, Phil Hogan T.D. as part of the ‘Putting People First’ action plan for Local Government.

All reforms can be viewed on www.environ.ie.

Local Government reform will mean extra representation for Dublin Fingal

Alan Farrell TD - Working for you in Dublin Fingal

Mortgage advice initiative will advise distressed mortgage holders Free, independent professional financial advice is being provided to borrowers in mortgage distress.

Borrowers can select an accountant from the panel of 1000 independent participating accountants which will be available on a county by county basis on the Citizens Information Board website www.keepingyourhome.ie. €10 million has been made available by the banks for this initiative, with each mortgage holder being able to avail of services amounting to €250.

The Mortgage Arrears Information Helpline, 0761 07 4050, provides general mortgage arrears information and guidance to mortgage holders who are in difficulty making their repayments.

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l to Balbriggan will be the next town in Finga structure investment in Eircom’s fibre broadband infra the area in which will benefit businesses and homes rtune time from April 2013. “This comes at an oppo n such rigga Balb in tives initia l euria pren entre when n Chamber as Fumbally Exchange and the Balbrigga rnment Gove ved recei tly recen have erce Comm of funding.”

Tidy Town Success

Congratulations to all teams across Fingal for their tremendous success in this year’s Supervalu Tidy Towns competition, whic h a true reflection of the work and comm was itment that volunteers undertake every year for their community.

Well done to Skerries for winning the Regi Award for Dublin, to Malahide on its Gold onal Medal Award win, to Balbriggan on its Dubl in Fingal Endeavour Award and to Lusk, winner of the Commended Award for Fingal.

I would also like to congratulate John Flynn of Lusk, who has been named as one of this year’s heroes of the Tidy Town competition.

For regular updates please email ‘subscribe’ to alan.farrell@oir.ie

Plebiscite on Dublin Mayor should be extended to all Local Authorities Citizens in all Local Authorities should have the opportunity to decide by a ballot whether they want their own directly elected Mayor who is accountable to the people and enhance the role and function of each local authority.

Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Phil Hogan TD, has announced that Dublin will have a plebiscite in 2014. The authority of Councillors has been eroded over the decades and in particular by the 2001 Local Government Act. An elected Mayor will create a more defined management structure at local authority level.

Clinic Times in Fingal (exc Jan) FIRST MONDAY OF EACH MONTH Donabate Community Centre 7.00 - 7.30pm Lusk Murray’s

7.45 - 8.15pm Rush Rush Community Centre 8.30 - 9.00pm FIRST THURSDAY OF EACH MONTH Skerries Community Centre Balbriggan Town Hall Swords Senior Citizens Centre

6.30 - 7.00pm 7.15 - 7.45pm 8.00 - 8.30pm

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Follow Alan Online!

If you’d like to keep up to date with Alan online, you can follow him on Twitter or Facebook www.facebook.com/alanfarrelltd www.twitter.com/alanfarrell www.alanfarrell.ie

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Alan Farrell pictured while Mayor of Fingal in 2008 alongside the now Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney outside Leinster House.

WE’VE MOVED! My Constituency Office has moved to Townyard Lane, Malahide and will open in the coming weeks.

If you wish to make an appointment please contact 01 618 4008

Alan Farrell TD - Working for you in Dublin Fingal

JOBS ACTION UPDATE –

Action Plan for Jobs Summary 2012 Private Sector employment has started to grow for the first time in four years and work is well underway on Action Plan for Jobs 2013. 95,000 people came off the live register since in 2012. However this is not reflected in Live Register figures due to the continued reduction in construction, banking and public sector numbers.

The Jobs Action Plan for 2012 was to accelerate this transition through targeted implementation in areas of growth through the following schemes.

Targeted Areas for Job Creation 2012 • Manufacturing – Manufacturing Development Forum with a strategy to drive the creation of 20,000 jobs in the sector by 2016 • Digital games – Clustering Development Team to drive the creation of 2,500 jobs by end-2014.

• Cloud computing – Technology Centre in Cloud Computing, Learning Technologies and Financial Services.

• Healthcare/life sciences – Healthcare innovation Hub to drive collaboration between the health sector and industry, enable the testing of new products with a view to accelerating commercialisation and creating jobs.

• “Smart Futures” – A careers partnership between ICT Ireland, Irish Medical Devices Association, Engineer’s Ireland and SFI/Discover Science and Engineering.

Finance measures

Pro-jobs tax measures

• €90million Micro Finance Loan Scheme for micro-enterprises.

• €450million Credit Guarantee Scheme, for SMEs. • €150million Development Capital Scheme for mid-sized exporting companies.

• Second call for proposals under the €120million Innovation Fund Ireland for high-growth emerging companies.

• €10million international start-up fund for international entrepreneurs.

• €2million programme for industry “clusters” • €250,000 funds to support female entrepreneurs.

• Incentives to companies to send staff to export markets • Incentives to business leaders within multinationals to relocate to Ireland • Incentives to company start-ups • Improvements to the R&D tax credit scheme

Supports for business • Incentives to companies to send staff to export markets • Incentives to business leaders within multinationals to relocate to Ireland • Incentives to company start-ups • Improvements to the R&D tax credit scheme

Fingal receive funding for job creation Fingal Enterprise Board will receive €200,000 to fund the creation of up to 20 jobs in Dublin Fingal for the remainder of 2012.

This is part of an national €3.78million fund that has just been announced for County and City Enterprise Boards to support and encourage companies to startup or expand their services and thereby create and sustain jobs around the country.

This follows an exercise in which each CEB was asked to examine the funding it currently has available and to determine whether this was sufficient to cover the project proposals coming to them over the rest of the year.

RECENT JOB ANNOUNCEMENTS KERRY GROUP 800 PADDY POWER 610 FIDELITY INVESTMENTS 200 EA GAMES 300 BUTTERFIELD FULCRUM 150 OTHER 411

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Your Local Fine Gael Team:

James Reilly TD Minister for Health Tel: 01 890 1300 james.reilly@oireachtas.ie

Cllr Tom O’Leary Balbriggan Ward Tel: 087-2411626 tom.oleary@fingalcoco.ie

Cllr Anthony Lavin Malahide / Portmarnock Tel: 087-9931329 anthony.lavin@fingalcoco.ie

Cllr Larry Dunne Balbriggan Town Council Tel: 01 – 8414356 larry.dunne@balbriggan.ie

Cllr Joan Maher Malahide / Portmarnock Tel; 087 2837169 joanmaher1@eircom.net

GET IN TOUCH, GET INVOLVED

Politics in our country is changing and the driving force behind this change is individuals. If you would like to get involved and have your voice heard, please visit www.alanfarrell.ie or contact my office.

ALAN FARRELL TD Chairperson, Internal Committee for Public Expenditure and Reform

Dáil Éireann, Leinster House, Kildare Street, Dublin 2. Tel: 01 6184008 alan.farrell@oir.ie www.alanfarrell.ie www.twitter.com/alanfarrell

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Alan Farrell TD - Working for you in Dublin Fingal