Businesses in Crisis
Post Event Press Release Thursday 18th March 2010
The Drogheda & District Chamber of Commerce were delighted to see that the local media took the issue of the crisis facing businesses very seriously and extensive coverage of the meeting and the issues facing our business community was the result.
The President on behalf of the Chamber issued a press release following the meeting on 11.03.2010 last where she highlighted the fact that post meeting the Chamber had been inundated with communications of support and suggestions as to how we might take the situation by the scruff of the neck and turn it around.
A very significant number of those communications were from local and senior politicians and this was the cause of great encouragement to the Chamber and its members.
However it is with great surprise and disappointment on reading the Drogheda Independent of 17th March, that we see the Mayor Michael O’Dowd has chosen to focus on his ‘exclusion’ from speaking at the Business in Crisis Meeting.
The Chamber would like to correct some inaccurate statements which have been circulated by the Mayor in this piece relating to The Businesses in Crisis Meeting.
Firstly it was clearly communicated to the Mayor by letter on 25th February by the Chamber President Patricia Rooney that NO elected representatives would be invited to speak, that this was to be a meeting for the Business Owners and Managers in the District and an opportunity for them alone to outline the difficulties they were experiencing.
The Mayor did not as he has stated “raise the question of council participation prior to the meeting”. The only communication from the Mayor’s office was a letter of 2nd March which stated the Mayor would “make every effort to be in attendance.” He made no reference prior to the event of his disappointment at not being given an opportunity to speak.
The Mayor goes on to state that the Chamber did not represent the Councils position accurately in relation to rates, for the record all the minutes have been written up and are totally accurate. The County Manager brought forward the budget with a 3% Commercial Rates and a 5% Water Rates reduction (Chamber requested 6.6% and 50%). The Budget as presented by the County Manager was proposed by Mayor Michael O’Dowd and seconded by Cllr. Frank Maher. The only people who voted against it were the three Sinn Fein delegates (opposed on Bin issues) and Cllr. Ken O’Heighligh, who fought for the Chambers requests.
The Mayor also states that Drogheda’s “3% reduction was the highest in the Country.” This is also untrue, our nearest neighbours to the south – Fingal CC brought forward a 10% reduction in Commercial Rates.
It was always known by all the elected representatives and any specifically invited guests to the meeting that the whole premise was to give a voice to the business community and that is exactly what the Chamber succeeded in doing.
Similarly it was known and noted by the elected representatives that only the business community would be speaking at the meeting. None of the other local elected representatives who were in attendance had a problem with this with the exception of the Mayor and his deputy Kevin Callan. Indeed we were complimented by some of those elected representatives in attendance on the content and format of the meeting.
Clearly these other members of the Borough and County Councils and indeed Government houses understood and appreciated the opportunity to listen to what businesses were facing and the solutions they had identified as helpful to Drogheda and economic activity. None of those [elected representatives] who attended misunderstood the criteria or rationale of the format and indeed it was also an objective of setting that format that we would avoid the ‘council bashing’ that the Mayor referred to in his complaints about the meeting.
Had the Mayor been in attendance for the 1st half of the meeting, he would have been aware of this, as Chamber President Patricia Rooney went to great lengths to indicate that any such behaviour would not be tolerated. This objective was so successful that some commentators described the meeting as ‘subdued’. We would rather describe it as business like which is what we do best, we get to the heart of the issue and deal with the issue not personalities or egos.
We at the Chamber are indeed working assiduously through the Louth Economic Forum and the Drogheda Economic Forum and many other vehicles in tandem with state agencies. Recently the Mayor was co-opted onto the Drogheda Economic Forum which is chaired by the President Patricia Rooney and we will continue to work through these vehicles for as long as they represent a possibility of delivering progress and economic activity to Drogheda.
The Chamber does not see this activity which it engages in through its Council Members voluntarily, as mutually exclusive to its entitlement to speak on behalf of the business community - and to facilitate the business community speaking for itself.
We would like to thank all those others who attended the Businesses in Crisis meeting, especially the Business Owners and Managers for their very positive feedback on the running of the meeting, and can confirm that whereas the Mayor deemed our format and delivery to be ‘very strange’ – the comments we received here at the Chamber were the polar opposite. ‘Professional – and extremely well run’, ‘important and necessary’ – ‘a great initiative well run’ – ‘businesses need support in our area and they need to feel supported’ were typical remarks and vindicate our opinion that businesses need a voice and they need to be listened to when they do speak.
ENDS
