OPINION: Why is the Dublin government weighing in on the Derry railway station debate?

The fact that Translink has felt it necessary to recruit a selection of the Great and the Good from across the island to support its mediocre plan for the Waterside Station should tell councillors and others that this is no ordinary planning application.

Translink is clearly jittery about its proposal as we approach what the company hopes will be the final phase of this saga.  Who has ever heard of a Dublin cabinet minister signing a document urging a local council in the North to take a particular view of a planning application?

It is to be noted that TDs were not consulted before Minister Shane Ross decided to throw the weight of his office behind the Translink scheme.

The document endorsing Translink has also been signed by the CEO of Donegal County Council. This, too, is very odd. It is even odder when we consider that Donegal councillors were not consulted before the CEO put pen to paper in their name.

We have asked for but haven’t been given access to the minutes of the council’s Predetermination mearing on February 28^th. A number of councillors left that meeting long before it was finished. They didn’t hear the arguments put forward by Into The West and others, including the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society and Foyle Civic Trust.

We have been told that if we want these minutes, we should apply via the Freedom of Information Act. This would mean waiting up to 20 working days - a month. Translink will be hoping that everything will be done and dusted by then. We believe that is one of a number of breaches of proper process in the course of this saga.

Are the councillors who left the Pre-Determination meeting before it was even half way through, going to put their hands up and vote on the Translink plan without having listened to the arguments?

We have asked for sight of recent correspondence about the station between Translink and the council - but have been refused. These are public bodies dealing with a public development of huge importance to our city. But the Derry public is apparently to be left in the dark about the discussions which led to the proposal now being put to the council.

We urge councillors to make a decision on Wednesday based on the arguments which have been advanced. They have the heritage of Derry in their hands. We trust they will take every care to make their decision not on the basis of scare-mongering and incomplete information but objectively on the basis of the facts put before them, including the facts supplied by  Into The West, the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, Foyle Civic Trust and others.