Stephen Donnelly Writes…

Gerry Walsh & Stephen Donnelly

right to reply, following yesterday’s interview with the Charlesland Youth Centre committee, issued on Monday, June 12th 2017…

Dear Paul,

I’m writing to you regarding your recent articles concerning the potential new community centre for the Charlesland area. Let me begin by stating that any and all work done by any individual or group, in this case including the committee referenced in your article, is warmly welcomed, and the more community-based activity that we have in the town, the better.

Regrettably, the inference from multiple articles written by you was that Councillor Gerry Walsh and I were somehow trying to claim credit for the committee’s work. This is entirely untrue. The first time I became aware that any such committee existed was on Friday evening. The first time I knew what it was called was reading your article. When I was told about it, I welcomed their efforts, and said that I’d be delighted to meet up with them.

What we knew up to that point was that there was a proposal for a single room facility, and we included that in our release. It seems this proposal came from the committee, and that they did significant work locally to that end. As before, that is openly and warmly welcomed, and no doubt the people involved deserve credit for their hard work.

The work Councillor Walsh and I did was entirely separate to this committee. We are progressing a range of projects in the town, in areas including sports, job creation, homelessness, education and transport. One such project is the provision, not just of youth facility, but of a community facility, of which a youth facility would be one part. A youth facility is something that has been raised on numerous occasions over several years, both in Greystones and in other towns across Wicklow. In fact, the original data for this case comes from the work done several years ago to make the case, based on demographics, for a new primary school in the Charlesland area.

As part of our work, we reviewed modern community centres in Ireland and the UK. Based on that, we concluded that a multi-use facility would be ideal, that is what we pursued, and that is what has been agreed. Councillor Walsh and I were absolutely delighted to get a positive response, and shared that news on Friday. That a separate group of people were working on a similar proposal is great to hear, and hopefully the combination of multiple groups has helped with the outcome. But to portray the work of one group as jumping on the band wagon of the other is entirely wrong, and counter-productive to progressing projects like this in the town.

Politicians and their teams sometimes work together, as, for example, Minister Harris and I currently are on one local project that requires national input. But regularly we work independently, sometimes on similar projects, and unaware of each other’s work. We work hard to try and get things done for the local community. Sometimes we fail (more than we would like), while other times we get a result (less often than we would like). The community centre is one such result. To have that good news met with such unpleasantness negativity by you was disappointing, particularly when it was so inaccurate, based in part on your failure to seek any comment from Councillor Walsh or I as to what actually happened.

A party that deserves great credit in all of this is Cairn. As you know, they are developing in multiple locations in the town, and have consistently presented the view that they want to help develop a strong and sustainable community here. The commitment to a community centre of this scale is evidence of that approach. My hope is that your articles do not put them off on-going engagement in community projects such as this.

Regards,
Stephen

You can read yesterday’s interview with the Charlesland Youth Centre Committee here.