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20th December 2011 • Volume 18, Issue 38 • Leader House, North Street, Swords, Co. Dublin. • ISDN 8139966 • Tel: 8•400•200
METRO NORTH
€151m
THORNTON HALL
€48m
NEVITT DUMP
€32.7m
€231.7m
Waste Management? T
he news that the County Council has decided not to proceed with the Nevitt Super Dump has been greeted with universal relief in the North County. It is the latest in a list of projects planned for the North County to be abandoned. This great news, however, is tempered by an appalling waste of public money in the process. The total amount of public money wasted on three local projects, namely Thornton Hall, which was earmarked to replace Mountjoy Prison, Metro North and Nevitt Super Dump is a staggering €231.7 million. The breakdown of the costs are included in the attached information box. This waste of taxpayers’ money comes at the height of the deepest recession in living memory. Just earlier this year, Special Needs assistants were withdrawn from schools in the North County, due to lack of funding. This has left the most vulnerable citizens in our society without the necessary tools to provide for their further education. Would €231.7 million have made a difference here?
By Patrick Finnegan As we travel across the North County, we see schools with old prefabs dotted around the landscape. At this time of year, these outdated add on’s are poorly heated, many with leaking roofs and utterly inadequately equipped for the purposes of top class education. Similarly, as we reported recently, the hospitals surrounding the North County all have unacceptable numbers of patients waiting on trolleys in overcrowded conditions, which many believe to be potentially life threatening. Would €231.7 million have made a difference here? Minister for Health and local resident, Dr James Reilly spoke about the possibility of Swords having it’s own world class health facility during his term of office. In all areas of the North County, communities are struggling to provide community centres and facilities for recreation to improve quality of life, but yet again, funding is not available. We cannot turn on our television sets without hearing about another nursing home that has to be closed down, again due of the lack of funding. People have
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contacted us about the state of many of our so called health centres, which are in bad need of upgrading. Our hard pressed citizens have just been handed a Christmas present in the form of a property levy of €100 per household - all happening in the same area that the sickening amount of €231.7 million was squandered. A spokesperson for the local authority has confirmed to the County Leader that the “total spend to date on the Nevitt Landfill project is €32.7 million. County Mayor, Gerry McGuire summed up the general relief at the decision to cancel the Nevitt project when he stated: “People from the area are very relieved that the super dump is not going ahead. On top of the €32.7 million spent, it would have required a further €45 million to complete it,” he said. Many local residents, who are opposed to the proposed Monster Sewage Plant being located in the North County have expressed a fear that the same mistake will be repeated here and that a further astronomical amount of public money will be wasted on another project that may unravel.
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