A new build for Coláiste Íosagáin secondary school, a regeneration of the town centre and capitalising on the increase in remote working are the three main priorities for Portarlington over the next couple of years, according to local independent TD Cathal Berry, who has his constituency office on the Main Street.
Berry, who is a TD for the Kildare South constituency which includes Portarlington, Killenard and Ballybrittas, was the first TD with a Portarlington base to be elected to the Dáil since 1927 in last year’s General Election.
Speaking this week on the LaoisToday Podcast he says he hopes to contest the next General Election again and that he feels a TD needs a ten-year spell to effect change.
“It takes time for a lot of things to happen,” he said. “And I would be looking at a ten-year period if you really want to improve the Defence Forces, if you really want to improve the Kildare South constituency and particularly the Laois-Offaly enclave around Portarlington, it’s going to require a ten-year lead-in really.
“A complete regeneration of the town. A new secondary school, a new town centre and main street. That won’t happen overnight. The rule of thumb, you kind of need two terms of parliament before you can properly instigate the change you set out.
“I’d be very keen to run again but it’s the people’s prerogative whether they put me back.
He says there are three key issues for the Portarlington area that are of immediate focus.
“Coláiste Íosagáin, the secondary school in Portarlington, is number one obviously. It is really in need of a new build.
“We have good communication from the Taoiseach’s office and the Minister Norma Foley and we’re probably going to move on to Stage 2 of the development process in the next couple of months which is the whole planning permission submission. We definitely have to get that project over the line for sure.
“Also from a Portarlington perspective – town regeneration. There are funds ring-fenced – €2 to €3 million. It does need a significant facelift in the square.”
And he says that the town is ideally placed to make the most of the move towards remote working given the number of people who were previously commuting to Dublin for work and the presence of a high quality local Enterprise Centre.
“We need to capitalise on the remote working trend. In the past approximately 1,500 people were leaving Portarlington every single morning to go to Dublin or elsewhere.
“Our task is to try and get them to stay in Portarlington. You shouldn’t have to leave Laois to get a job. If you want to, by all means, but preferably we want people to able to live and work in the same county.
“We’re not looking to try and create 500 jobs but if we could relocate 500 jobs from Dublin where they’re not needed, back to Laois, where they are, we need to look at the remote working strategy for the area.
“There is a wonderful Enterprise Centre which people know very little about. Mary Keogh does an excellent job in co-ordinating that but we really need to leverage that wonderful asset we have and get as many people as we can staying in Portarlington during the day to work.
“Their quality of life will go through the roof, they won’t be exhausted coming home from work, they can contribute to their community more and they can save a fortune.”
You can listen to the interview in full below on Soundcloud or on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
The LaoisToday Podcast is brought to you in association with iCashco, market leaders in automated cash handling.
SEE ALSO – Check out all the previous LaoisToday Podcast episodes here
