Madam, - I feel the coverage given to the recent land rezoning at Dunleer is most unfair. While I agree that any business dealing that involves anyone connected to Fianna Fáil deserves scrutiny, the outcome is correct in this case.
Dunleer has been referred to as a rural idyll, a backwater without merit and the last place anyone in their right mind would want to develop.
The opposite is true. Dunleer rail station, which sits on the main Dublin to Belfast rail track, was closed recently but can be reopened at the turn of a key. The village is on the old Dublin to Belfast national road, is served by two exit/entry points onto the new M1 and is frequently served by buses that take people north to Dundalk, Newry and Belfast and south to Drogheda, Dublin Airport and Dublin city.
Dunleer is adjacent to the Boyne Valley, within a short bicycle ride of beaches and has the Cooley mountains as a backdrop.
The village has schools, factories, restaurants, supermarkets and is a very short distance from two large hospitals. The diagram with the article on Saturday does not do the village justice.
People must live; parents can't have adult children living under the stairs. Many young people live in newly built houses. This has always been the case and these houses should be built near schools, transport links, hospital jobs and leisure amenities. I welcome the plan to have a new retail area next to the motorway. Motorways throughout the world have somewhere to break your journey, eat, get fuel and go to the toilet.
Dunleer is a natural place to develop; it is an established community and has all the amenities and job potential that such a development requires. This proposed development will be good for Dunleer, good for Louth and may present a good model for other places to follow.
Visit Dunleer as I have done; most people whom I have asked welcome the plan and the prospects of the social and economic enrichment that will follow. - Yours, etc.,
MICHAEL FITZGERALD, North Road, Drogheda, Co Louth.