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18th October 2016 • Volume 23, Issue 36 • Leader House, North Street, Swords, Co. Dublin. K67 P5W4. • Tel: 01 8•400•200 • info@northcountyleader.ie • www.northcountyleader.ie
Hands Off Swords! County Mayor, councillor Darragh Butler (FF) is calling on Swords residents to make a submission to the new Constituency Commission before the deadline of next January, due to fears that the constituency may be divided as it was prior to the last general election. The fears have been raised due to the fact that Dublin Fingal constituency has now just slightly surpassed the population limit for a five seater constituency. The solution last time out was to divide the town of Swords, with the western part of the town becoming part of Dublin West. This led to many voters in the area feeling disenfranchised and forgotten and Butler is determined that this should not be repeated. He told the County Leader, “We cannot allow Swords to be cut in two like their disastrous decision back in 2009. We finally got it reversed in time for the recent General Election. Swords is the capital town of Fingal and I want the Constituency Commission to get the message loud and clear that we will not allow this to happen again. Swords and the environs of Rolestown, Kilsallaghan and St. Margaret’s must be kept together and must remain part of Dublin Fingal. We cannot accept parts of Swords, Rolestown, Kilsallaghan and St. Margaret’s being syphoned off to Dublin West, a
By Patrick Finnegan constituency to which they have no natural connection. The Council border and the Dail border must be kept consistent in this regard,” he said. The Constitutional provisions in relation to Dáil constituencies state that the number of members shall from time to time be fixed by law, but the total number of 30,000 of the popu-
lation, or at more than one member for each 20,000 of the population. Butler explained, “As part of the Constituency Commission Statement 2016 report, we can see that the five-seat constituency of Dublin Fingal has a popular of 30.352 per TD, marginally over the limit. Accordingly we can expect that if Dublin Fingal is to remain as a five-seat constituency, we can expect some part of the constituency to be hived off to a neighbouring
Local councillor, Tom O’Leary (FG) has confirmed that the County Council are interested in acquiring a 46 acre site at Loughshinny, which he believes may turn tourism in the county on its head. The site at Drumanagh is a National Monument comprising a promontory fort, as well as a Martello tower, dating back to Napoleonic times. Some believe that it is where the Romans may have landed, which if found to be true, will have enormous consequences for heritage and tourism in the area. However, the County Council remained tight-lipped about the proposed purchase of the site, said to be worth €1 million. A spokesman for Fingal County Council
confirmed that they ‘were interested in acquiring the site, but no deal has been completed’. An excited O’Leary told the County Leader, “I’m delighted that the County Council are interested in the site at Drumanagh at Loughshinny, with a view to purchasing it. This has been ongoing since I was on the Council, when the former County Manager, David O’Connor was trying to acquire the land. He was very excited at the prospect that this historical site might actually
have been the site where the Romans possibly may have landed here.” “This, of course needs to be properly investigated, but if it’s true, it is likely to be a monument of national and international importance. It needs to be carefully examined and, who knows, we may end up having an Interpretative Centre here. This needs to be sensitively developed and I will be encouraging Fingal County Council, the OPW and all Continued on page 21
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constituency and this has me concerned. I will be urging as many residents as possible from Swords, Rolestown, Kilsallaghan and St. Margaret’s to make a hands off submission, that we are not going anywhere, we want to remain part of Dublin Fingal and we will not accept any division of Cllr. Darragh Butler Swords, the capital town of Fingal, that we had to fight so hard to get reversed in time for the recent General Election,” said a defiant Butler. “The people of River Valley have no connection with Dublin West and dividing the county town, the capital of Fingal is crazy and makes no sense at all. Dividing the residents of Park Avenue on Brackenstown Road, where they could not vote in the polling station across the road from them and had to go to River Valley to cast their votes was appalling and must not happen again,” said Butler. “They carry out a boundary review after each election and we managed to have the last change reversed mainly through people power. We ran a campaign and we got hundreds of submissions in to the Commission saying that Swords must be reunited. I want to prevent them coming up with some ill-thought out solution to this problem. We need hundreds of submission calling for ‘Hands Off Swords’, which hopefully will make them see sense,” he concluded.