Minister Frank Feighan reflects on a year in power and outlines his hopes for Sligo
The Sligo ChampionA little over a year on from the general election that saw the Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael coalition returned to power, Minister of State Frank Feighan reflected on a year in power, his role in government, what he has been happy with and what he would still like to achieve while in power.
Having topped the poll in the Sligo/Leitrim constituency with 15.8% of the first preference votes, Feighan described the past year as “Interesting” when asked how we would describe life since the general election.
And, the year has ended on an even better note for Feighan on a personal note as he was appointed as a Minister of State, his second ministerial role in successive governments.
But there’s been downs as well and it’s been a year when the government has come under criticism from several quarters.
And when asked what the biggest issue facing the country is he had no hesitancy in nominating, housing.
“The government has been united. Our most important goal now is delivering for the country, delivering for the constituency and delivering for the people of our country and the most pressing issue at the moment is housing. I think we have made a good start with the Housing Action Plan, a lot of good work is being done with the local authorities and various agencies and I think this will bear fruit in the months and years ahead.”
As he explained, the lack of available houses is a key factor in driving prices and he believes it is the role of the government to tackle affordable housing.
“When you have a lack of supply it is a seller’s market. Our role is to increase the housing stock, we have done that in social housing, we need now to do it in affordable housing. There are so many different avenues that we are exploring.
"There are a lot of worthwhile initiatives in the Housing Action Plan and our job is to create an environment where builders can build and buyers can buy at reasonable costs and people will have a place they can call home. A lot of times you have unintended consequences, we’ve had to deal with a recession which effectively devastated the housing market.
"Most of the builders emigrated or left to go back to their native countries. The developers, the people who built houses, went out of business, the banks went out of business. We’ve gone out and started from scratch again and not withstanding that you had Brexit which distorted planning ahead and then w we have had the Russian/Ukraine war.
“I think Leo Varadkar said in 2015 or 2016 when we felt that the economy was beginning to stabilise that we could have taken more risks, in borrowing more, but that is great in hindsight.
"Even today people are still very burned. I think that there is an overarching emphasis on providing housing and I believe that will be going through in the next months and years.”
Having been sworn enemies for the best part of a century, Fianna Fail and Fine Gael are now in their second term as coalition partners and Feighan is pleased with how the pairing is working although he insisted, “We both have our own identities.”
He continued, “I really have time for politicians who want to govern. It’s a great place to be in opposition sometimes but to govern, it has its challenges, but you can actually deliver for your people, for your constituents, for your country.
"We have a stable government which attracts inward investment, it attracts confidence and that is what pays the taxes which pays for the services. We don’t get everything right but I think we got a lot of things right.
"Just look at what is happening in the United Kingdom, the United States, in countries around the world. Here, we have a stable government, a stable economy and when you have a robust revenue stream then you can actually deliver.”
The relative stability enjoyed here in Ireland is put into context when Feighan talks about global issues such as Brexit and the the influence of Russia and China on global matters.
“Our world is a small world. When I was growing up we joined the EEC in 1973 and that to me has transformed our country. To me, it brought peace to the island of Ireland, our relationship with the United Kingdom through our partnership with the EU from 1973 on had brought peace.
"We are now part of a global world, the geopolitics plays a huge role and you can have outside influences. You can have Chinese, you can Russian influences in how to distort a picture and we have to get real.”
And for politicians nowadays the reality of a being in the public eye has taken on a realm that couldn’t have been foreseen when he first entered elected politics as a councillor in Boyle in 1999.
Referencing the online abuse he has suffered recently that led to him blocking 300 people in a month on social media, Feighan remarked, “You saw what happened to me. In the United Kingdom Brexit was brought on by xenophobia, elitism, English nationalism and dark money which came online from primarily Russia.
"That was a wake-up call, 10 years ago that would have tried to disunite the EU. The United Kingdom is out of the EU which brings huge problems to the United Kingdom and anybody there would agree. It brought huge challenges to Ireland and the island of Ireland. We navigated those challenges trying to ensure that the Good Friday Agreement was secure but also from a market point of view, we’ve done a lot.
"Outside influences, we can never be too complacent that they are there and they are there not to be helpful. Social media is a great forum but it can be used in the wrong way.”
I want to see a rail line but I don’t want to sell people a lie or a dream, I want to be realistic
Returning to matters closer to home and specifically relating to his role as Minister of State at the Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, Feighan spoke about greenways and railways expressing the view that he would love to see a rail service between Sligo and Galway but doesn’t envisage it happening any time soon and he would like to see the proposed Bellaghy to Collooney greenway advanced.
“I would love to see a railway between Galway and Sligo. We have waited 30 years for a railway to go into Claremorris. I am absolutely delighted this is on the next stage. However, I have seen that railway closed for 50 years.
"My father left Tubbercurry on that railway to go to London. I want to see something happening there, I don’t want to wait another 50 years for something tangible to happen from a tourism point of view.
"The Claremorris line from Athenry was in the National Rail Strategy which was brought in by Eamon Ryan, the Green Party Minister four years ago. North to Sligo from Claremorris was not included in that. If you want to get included in the National Development Plan you have to be included in the National Rail Strategy.
"When it wasn’t put in the National Rail Strategy it can’t be put into the National Development Plan. We’ve got to try to get it in to the National Rail Strategy and down the road get into the National Development Plan. In the meantime, €1.5m has been spent on planning a greenway from Bellaghy to Collooney which will link up with the SLNCR greenway. It can link up from Collooney to Carrick-on-Shannon, Sligo, Rosses Point and Strandhill.
“I believe it is possible to have both – rail and greenway and if it is an issue we have another greenway which is already up and running between Mullingar and Athlone on that old railway and that has been included in the NDP.
"I think in five or 10 years time when it is built that the railway will go on that greenway and that is fine. I want to see a rail line but I don’t want to sell people a lie or a dream, I want to be realistic.
"What I believe we should do now is build a greenway on that part of the railway and it should first of all be put in the National Rail Strategy which I will be absolutely pursuing then down the road, which could be a different government, we can then try to get it in to the NDP. But even with the best will in the world, whether we build one or two, it is still 20, 25, 30 years (for the railway to be built).”
This is at odds with the views of Irish Rail which has specifically stated the line from Collooney to Bellaghy/Charlestown will be preserved for rail use only. Sligo County Council recently scrapped plans to run the greenway alongside the rail track.
While a solution may not be found to the rail issues any time soon, Deputy Feighan is pleased with progress being made in other areas of infrastructure, in particular roads as he noted, “The N17 to me is a burning issue between Collooney and Charlestown and that is in the NDP.
"I made huge efforts in ensuring that was continued in the last government because Eamonn Ryan had a difficulty with roads and I made an intervention that ensured that we came up with a resolution that ensured that the designers were kept working and this announcement which came two months ago, we would have been two years behind, I ensured that was carried on.
“I‘m proud of that one and I’m delighted that myself and Marian Harkin and Eamon Scanlon ensured that was put in. You have the N15 which is put in the NDP, you have the eastern Garavogue bridge which is moving on. The Carrick-on-Shannon bypass is moving ahead and I was very responsible for that and you have the N4 from Rooskey to Mullingar, that is also included in the NDP.
“My job was the N17 but the N4 is equally important, or more important for people from Sligo. Although it is not in our constituency (Rooskey to Mullingar) it effects motorists from our county. A lot of good work is being done and there is the upgrade of the Sligo-Dublin rail line. We need to get a train into Sligo in the morning and also we’d love to get a dining cart which is an issue.”
Another development that Feighan has been pleased with is the growth of Sligo’s university saying, “I’m very proud of the ATU. I would have been very closely involved with bringing St Angela’s in with the ATU. You can see the vibrancy, the confidence and we need to grow on that.
"There are a lot of Sports Capital grants, Sligo Rovers, I look forward to seeing that development going ahead for their centenary year in 2028. The hospital, we have a surgical hub, the CT scan, I was very involved in that, the 42 bed block is progressing, a new primary care centre coming into Tubbercurry.
"Sligo Garda Station is outstanding business. There was a lot of issues internally within the Gardaí, I’d love to see that and we will be working on that hopefully in the new year and we will see if we can make progress on that.
Feighan accepted the recent budget wasn’t the giveaway everybody would have liked but he felt it was necessary to be prudent for the good of the country.
“The budget, I think the budget was a wake-up call to calm down the economy. This government will last for five years, the budget was designed to calm down expectations. I think there was still giveaways but what we wanted to do was protect the vulnerable.
"A lot of departments were saying, ‘I want an extra billion’ so I think the budget was designed to curb expectations and excess and whilst we would love to see that little bit more, it was designed for that. I genuinely believe this government will last four more years and we will keep a stable economy, a stable government and a government for all.”
Upbeat and positive by nature, Feighan referred to the greater life expectancy rates in the Republic compared to the North of Ireland which is “significant. You can talk about GDP and all that but that is a huge wake call so we must be doing something right.
"There is good things happening. I think the National Broadband Plan has changed the country as well in terms of work life balance. A lot of people have moved into rural areas, they can be working from home nationally or internationally. You can see in a lot of the rural schools there is a vibrancy there that wasn’t there when I was a kid.
"I’m not saying everything is rosy but we are trying to do our best on behalf of all the people.”
Article Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.