*Tánaiste Micheál Martin (FF). Photograph: Natasha Barton
FOR Ennis 2040 to progress there must be a positive collective mood towards the plan, the Tánaiste has said.
Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Micheál Martin (FF) was in Newmarket-on-Fergus on Friday to launch Ennis Chamber’s socio-economic profile on the county town.
He said Ennis was “one of my favourite towns in the country” when addressing the Ennis Chamber President’s Lunch and pointed out that one of the few visits to the town that he didn’t enjoy occurred last year when the Clare senior footballers then managed by Colm Collins secured a first championship win over Cork since 1997 following a late point from Cillian Rouine of Ennistymon.
Speaking to The Clare Echo following the launch, the leader of Fianna Fáil stated, “I’ve known Ennis a long time, in my earliest days as politics as an opposition spokesperson on Education I came down to here to an INTO conference and I’ve been coming to teaching conferences here for a long time. I have had breaks here, I like Ennis as a town, I come to football and hurling matches here, it is a beautiful town. Ennis’s socio-economic profile, the population growth is significant but what I thought was very significant was the population growth in the catchment areas of 6,000 more which is a very sizeable region catchment area for Ennis so the potential is enormous”.
While he was advised that discussing Ennis 2040 was akin to a political grenade, the former Taoiseach voluntarily brought up the economic and spatial plan which has caused much division among the business community and elected representatives within the town and county.
“I think the town plan and the 2040 plan, everyone is saying ‘stay out of it’, the only objective observation I would say is that people will have pros and cons, plusses and minuses, they will support one aspect of the plan and not another but it is very important there is a degree of positivity around it because others watching in will say ‘has this town got its act together, is this town heading in the right direction’, that in itself brings investment and people see it as a town that is looking ahead into the future, that is why that document is important, it is a marketing document for Ennis, I’ve seen it in the past historically when people get knotted in one aspect of an overall plan that it can bring a negativity about the overall town which doesn’t help,” he stated.
Approval of the planning act in September will assist such plans, he believed. “I would say we have to from a national point of view create better planning processes and the new planning act when it is through in September will make a big difference to the planning system, streamline it and have better timelines for people applying and the framework around the judicial review. Digital and renewable is where the future is alongside the lifesciences and technology. If you look in the Mid-West, Analog has been a huge investor, Eli Lily is a very significant investment and they are there for the long-haul, Clare will benefit from that and Ennis will benefit from that, you’ve to try create opportunities on how you benefit from that”.
