Tag Archives: Blanchardstown

Local Issues

Route 39 QBC flaws shown in Survey – Passengers demand a better service; say Joan Burton TD and Cllr Peggy Hamill

Blanchardstown’s Bus Corridor is the only one in Dublin where no improvement has happened in bus journey times according to survey by the Dublin Transport Office.
Bus users on the 39,38 and 37 routes are not surprised. They know the Blanchardstown route is a Quality Bus Corridor only in name.

It does not have a continuous bus lane along the whole length of the route as happens in many other QBCs. Instead it only has short bus lanes that feature here and there from Blanchardstown to town. In certain locations such as Hanlon’s corner and Prussia St the congestion creates very long delays for the buses which make a nonsense of the whole QBC exercise.
Labour Reps Joan Burton TD and Councillor Peggy Hamill have called for early remedial action to improve journey times on these routes.
“We need more frequent services,more express buses and more bus priority measures so that bus users can have confidence in the reliability of the local routes” Peggy Hamill said.


Local Issues

Joan Burton’s observations on Draft County Development Plan

Fingal County Council has begun the process of drawing up a new Development Plan. Labour TD, Joan Burton, has made a submission to the County Manager drawing attention to the needs of Dublin 15 for schools, public transport and infrastructure before the green light is given to yet more thousands of houses in the area. Joan Burton also makes a strong argument to save what little is left of the green belt surrounding Dublin 15, particularly the Liffey Valley and the Tolka Valley.

Over the next year, Fingal Councillors will be voting for and against major re-zonings of land. Labour Councillors will be voting for balanced development in the interests of people and communities, and not just speculative zoning to make multi-millionaires of developers and landowners. It is estimated that in recent years, landowners and developers have made nearly half a billion in profits on land re-zoning in Dublin 15 and Fingal.

Mr. Wm. Soffe,
Manager,
Fingal County Council,
County Hall, Main St.,
Swords,
Co. Dublin.6th September 2003

Dear Mr. Soffe,

Re: Development Plan

Further to the Council’s review of the Development Plan, I wish to make the following observations:

1.Fingal and Dublin 15 in particular have experienced incredible rates of growth in recent years. The new Development Plan should seek to address those deficiencies which have arisen, particularly in relation to infrastructure. Caution should be exercised in relation to further large scale re-zonings for housing and industrial purposes unless accompanied by guaranteed infrastructural development alongside any further development.

The refusal of the Department of Education to sanction educational infrastructure alongside the tremendous development of housing is perhaps the most striking failure of infrastructure and the cause of enormous problems for new residents of Dublin 15. The fact that school sites are zoned for housing means that the Department of Education has to pay land speculators huge prices for school sites. This is a major contributor to the Department of Education’s refusal to sanction an adequate number of new schools at primary and secondary level. It is not enough for the Council management to wash their hands of their responsibility for ensuring that such schools as are needed are developed. A pro-active stand by Council Management in favour of educational resources could see school sites zoned at their original agricultural land values and/or developers in pre-planning discussions offering such sites at cost to the Department of Education.

2.Dublin 15 has relatively little remaining green space or agricultural zoned land. Therefore, those green spaces which now constitute small green belts between Dublin 15 and Lucan on the south side and Finglas and Swords on the north side should be specifically conserved as green belt with agriculture, amenity and/or sports usage.

In particular, the Development Plan should seek to conserve the Liffey Valley and Tolka Valley as key green belt elements surrounding what is one of Ireland’s largest urban areas. In particular, the escarpments of both the Liffey and Tolka Valley should have their amenity/agricultural zoning strengthened.

Both these areas are of even greater significance to Blanchardstown in the context of the higher density of development currently permitted. The Plan should encourage pedestrian and cycling in both Valleys by restrictions on car speeds and car access (except for residents)

3.In Dublin 15 and Fingal in general the Council should undertake an ambitious programme of identifying a series of Fingal and Blanchardstown walks and ways to encourage the development of long distance walks and cycle paths,. A coastal walk from Sutton to Balbriggan should be designated and could be achieved over a 10 year period.

4.In Dublin 15 the absence of high quality public transport infrastructure is a significant deficiency of previous development plans. The Council should not permit further high density development along the railway line until there is a time based commitment to an upgrading of the Clonsilla line to Dart standards. Similarly, it is particularly striking that Dublin 15 absolutely lacks a complete bus corridor to the City Centre. The development of such should again be a condition of further large scale housing development. In addition, there is a serious deficiency in internal public transport within Dublin 15. Throughout Fingal there is very little development of services such as the Imp service. There are few local Dublin 15 bus services, nor are there adequate bus services between Dublin 15 and Swords and other areas of the north county.

5.With major towns in the pipeline for Dublin 15, at Hansfield, Phoenix Park racecourse, Ongar and also in the adjacent City Council area at Pelletstown, Dublin 15 without the development of public transport is in danger of complete gridlock. This may well have an adverse effect on the sustainability of employment in the area, as many employers particularly the large multi-nationals, have been increasingly critical of the traffic gridlock in Dublin 15.

6.Dublin 15 has developed as a series of suburban housing development, which has been developer led. As one of the largest urban areas in the country, bigger than Galway or Limerick, it is markedly lacking in urban landmarks and high quality architecture which would help to give it an individual character and style as one of Ireland’s biggest new towns. It should be an objective of the developlment plan to address the architectural quality of future building in the area and to contrive a number of landmark buildings. In addition, the old Villages of Dublin 15 such as Castleknock and Clonsilla have had relatively little attention paid to improving their status as important area centres marking a break among endless housing estates. Cobble lock paving should not constitute the be-all-and-end-all of Village ‘improvements’.

7.Similarly, as a suburban town, traffic calming needs to be an inherent feature of all new developments. The Council should look at estates as pedestrian cells/zones with traffic speeds reduced to 20mph by the use of appropriate measures such as ramps.

8.As we enter a more uncertain economic period, sustaining a high quality environment in Dublin 15 will be essential to sustaining employment in the area. The Council should undertake a detailed and expert review of the development of Dublin 15 to date, identifying successes such as the Town Centre and how to address deficiencies such as outlined above. Such a review should indicate the optimum size for Dublin 15 and consider that in the context of the developments being undertaken by neighbouring Councils and the regional planning guidelines.

9.As a public representative for Dublin West, I have put my views in relation to planning on the record on numerous occasions both within the Council and at public meetings. I look forward to contributing further to the discussion on sustainable development for Dublin 15 and Fingal.

Yours sincerely,

________________
Joan Burton, Cllr.

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Local Issues, Uncategorized

Burton to Hold Public Meeting on Blanchardstown Hospital

Labour TD Joan Burton has announced that the Labour Party in Dublin West is to hold a public meeting on Wednesday May 28th at 8pm in St. Bridget’s Hall in Blanchardstown beside the church in the village, to discuss the deteriorating situation at the James Connolly Memorial Hospital.

The meeting will be addressed by Joan Burton, TD, Cllr. Michael O’Donovan who is a member of the Northern Area Health Board and the Eastern Regional Health Authority and hospital staff members.

Individuals, community groups and hospital staff members interested in campaigning against the ward and bed closures that have taken place over the last couple of weeks in the hospital are particularly welcome to the meeting. Joan Burton said that she is particularly concerned about the failure of the NAHB to proceed with the opening of the new wing of the hospital on which almost €100 million of public funds has been spent.

Joan Burton said that the new wing is a state of the art building. “I have seen the building myself and it is truly splendid. I want a date set now for the opening. The original opening date was supposed to be April 2003, but April has come and gone without any sign or indication of when the new wing will be opened. This is a badly needed facility in the greater Blanchardstown area with its population in excess of 70,000.”

Deputy Burton said that the closure of the dedicated Rheumatology Unit and the closure of Unit 2 with 20 medical beds was a serious blow to the hospital. “Many younger people with rheumatology conditions were able to attend the hospital on a day clinic basis with little disruption to their family or working lives. The situation is now full of uncertainty and I have had many stressed patients and staff outlining to me their concern about the future of service, such as this one, in the hospital.”

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Local Issues

Burton Demands Opening Date for New Wing at James Connolly Hospital

Labour Deputy for Dublin West, Joan Burton, has today demanded an opening be set by the Minister for Health for the new wing of the James Connolly Hospital in Blanchardstown during a debate in the Dail today. Deputy Burton commented, “Almost EU 100 million has been spent on this brand new facility, with state of the art equipment wrapped in cellophane and lying unused.

“The statement by the Minister of State Brian Lenihan that an additional EU 5 million has been allocated to the hospital is old money promised by Micheal Martin when he visited the hospital some time ago. None of this 5 million will actually go into the opening of the new building. Instead, it will be spent refurbishing an existing surgical block.

“I have two further questions for the Minister: In relation to the closure of Unit 8 West, what is to happen to the ten patients today in the ward and uncertain of where to go?

“And secondly, in relation to the rheumatology department, currently treating many patients on a day-care basis, will these patients now have to join a queue for acute medical facilities?

“Many of these patients are young people who have acute rheumatic conditions, whose current treatment by the department is highly successful, enabling them to maintain their working and family lives. The proposals to merge this department, will, in fact, cost far more money in the long run. This is symptomatic of the crisis in political management and administration in the health system.

“It is a grave disservice to the wonderful work done by the medical and nursing staff in James Connolly that the hospital should be the victim of such vicious cutbacks.

“It will be spent on the old surgical wing to allow elderly patients vacate.”

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Local Issues

Minister Asked to Come Clean on Blanchardstown Hospital

Joan Burton TD has demanded that the Minister for Health, Micheal Martin TD and his Junior Minister, Brian Lenhian TD should come clean on when the extension to James Connolly Memorial Hospital, Blanchardstown will be fully functioning and open to the general public.

Public money to the tune of €90 million has been spent on the re-furbishment of the hospital and the building of a new wing. The building is now finished but has remained empty with no signs of when exactly it will be fully commissioned. Minister Lehinhan has recently promised to get an additional €5 million to fit out the new building and to possibly open the building “on a phased basis” starting in June. However, in a statement to Deputy Burton, the Northern Area Health Board acknowledged that there are on-going negotiations with staff, particularly in the psychiatric services, about the opening of the new psychiatric unit.

Deputy Burton said, “I am extremely concerned by reports from the psychiatric nurses annual conference that the new purpose built unit is highly defective and might constitute a danger to their members or indeed to future patients.”

“I am also astonished by the allegation by the psychiatric nurses that nursing staff were not consulted in the design of the new unit and if they had been, the design faults could have been rectified.
This is an incredible allegation, at a time when the Northern Area Health Board has spent millions of public money on increased administration and yet cannot seem to properly oversee design basics and consultation with users.”

The Staff of JCMH give a fantastic service to the local community, they deserve better than this, said Joan Burton TD.

She added that, because the hospital has no management board, unlike the Mater and Beaumont, it is under the direct control of the Northern Area Health Board, therefore no-one is able to speak out independently on behalf of the hospital, it’s patients and staff and the local community.

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Local Issues

Blanchardstown Hospital Fine a Disgrace says Joan Burton.

Labour T.D. for Dublin West, Deputy Joan Burton, said today that the decision by the Department of Health to fine Blanchardstown Hospital up to €1 million, because of an “inappropriate casemix”, was another blow to the hospital.

The hospital still has a €106 million new building sitting idle, largely unopened and unused. This new building includes a state of the art Accident & Emergency Unit.
Deputy Burton said that staff remain stuck in the old prefabs, while the new facilities remain locked next door. It is extraordinary that the hospital should be penalised for inefficiency, when the major inefficiency for the hospital is the old buildings it has to work with.

She said that, once again, the failure to give Blanchardstown a fair allocation was a damning indictment of the current Minister for Health and his deputy, the Junior Minister for Health, Brian Lenihan, who is also a T.D. for Dublin West. Deputy Burton said that the hardworking staff and doctors at Blanchardstown Hospital would be extremely distressed at this latest blow to the hospital by the Department of Health.