Councillors promise to fight for changes to N56 development rules

Councillors from the Glenties Municipal District have promised to fight to have rules governing access to and building houses along the N56 road changed. They claim if the rules are not changed it will spell the death knell for large tracts of that part of the county.

The discussion on this has dominated much of this morning's full meeting of Donegal County Council as councillors examine the draft County Development Plan while making amendments to it.

The meeting heard from various councillors from different parts of the county affected by the ban on development along the N56  

Cllr Marie Therese Gallagher proposed an amendment to the current plan saying said while she accepted there was a wider issue involved here, the development of one-off rural housing and access between Five Points, Killybegs and the Log Cabin outside Creeslough should be considered subject to certain conditions.

She added records showed that the section of the road was proven to be a low-traffic section of the N56 with figures coming in under 3,000.

Ms Gallagher claimed part of the N56 went through the most depopulated areas over the past 20 years.

"We are trying to turn all that around and put our best foot forward. I respect the engineers but that's what they are, engineers and infrastructure getting from A to B and not about people. We as a group are about people, we are going to put the people first and we're willing to have the battle. Unless we put the battle on the table there is no battle to be had."

She said she understood the same issues applied to the Donegal and Letterkenny-Milford Municipal Districts but their traffic counts were higher and including them in any proposal could affect how the department might evaluate their chances of success.

"It is the largest Gaeltacht region in the country. Rural and Gaeltacht communities in this region have suffered from generational and chronic depopulation. The current Socio-Economic being developed for Donegal shows this region is classified as the most deprived and economically disadvantaged region in the State.

"If you are serious about the language and retaining Gaeltacht communities, you have to allow the local people to live and that is a massive issue in West Donegal at the moment. We will go to every minister in every department and ask them to support our Gaeltacht region, our people have to live there," she said.

She also claimed the road from Dungloe to Glenties via the Gweebarra was only improved because it was a pet project by former Green Party leader, John Gormley and it included a cycle lane. This was hotly disputed by Fianna Fail leader on the council, Cllr Ciaran Brogan who said that road would never have been done only for the work former party TD Pat The Cope Gallagher had put into it over many years.

Cllr Noel Jordan withdrew his proposal to have Donegal MD included but Cllr Ciaran Brogan said he felt it necessary to keep Letterkenny-Milford MD in the equation

Council chief executive John McLaughlin pointed out that neither the council executive nor Transport Infrastructure Ireland were making the rules, just implementing them. It was the Department of the Environment that decided such matters and that's where they had to look for any changes to be made to current national policy.

The debate is set to resume this afternoon.