Back from left: Bridie Dillon, Island Crown CE supervisor; Miriam Ryan, Employability; Liz Galway, Castleisland Family Resource Centre; Margaret Daly and Jennifer O Sullivan, NEKD and Margaret O Connor, Crageen Community Employment supervisor.
An Information morning will be held in the River Island Hotel on this Friday, March 13th from 10am to 1pm. The event will highlight local services in employment and educational opportunities available in Castleisland and the neighbouring districts.
If you are interested in finding out more about these services you’re invited to come along on in the morning. Can events like this turn our fortunes around here or are they just tinkering around the edges of a massive problem.
I’m sure the facilitators would welcome people with ideas to revitalise the rampant, rural decline which is now most visible in its omni-directional advance.
The woeful picture of rural Ireland painted by Richard Curran’s RTE 1 TV documentary would demand more of a root and branch approach than a few hours consultation in a hotel in rural, South West Ireland.
An ideal and spacious ‘office floor’ lies waiting for a spark of political initiative on the Tralee Road Industrial Estate here in Castleisland since 2011. ‘Jobs’ are being announced again and that’s a cyclical occurance. But Castleisland isn’t getting within smelling distance of this current cycle of announcements. It is with great justification that the people of this valley and hinterland can claim to be really forgotten.
An inbred leaning towards self-reliance is what’s keeping food on the community table here. Can you imagine what it would mean if only one of those announcements came Castleisland’s way.
What it would mean for the business people of the locality, for the many sports clubs and schools in the area and for the battered, bruised psyche of the entire district.
It’s no exaggeration to say that life as we knew it here has been turned on its head and it seems unable to recover anything like its old balance.
There are people who blame it all on the opening of the by-pass in October 2010. There are those who take that life-changing chapter of our history and add in the unstoppable slide in the economy at that time. One way or another it adds up to the desolation of where we find ourselves today.
Cllr. Bobby O’Connell showed the former Aetna facility – in passing – to Minister Damien English when he visited recently with his colleague and fellow FG TD, Brendan Griffin.
Deputy English is Minister of State at the Departments of Education and Skills and Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation and has special responsibility for skills, research and innovation. The right man in the right place you’d think. We’ll wait and see.
The Aetna insurance claim processing facility – as it was then – closed as the life of this present Dáil was opening up in March 2011.
The since vacant premises comprises approximately of 16,000 sq. ft. and is located only a couple of hundred yards from the town centre.
There’s a general election coming in the spring of 2016 and Kerry will go to the polls as one, united constituency. There’s going to be one devil of a dog-fight over the five seats available and there’s a right nest of votes here.
If there’s pressure to be put on – now’s the time. If there’s anyone out there in the political sphere willing to lend a helping hand to another struggling, small town economy – now’s your time and God knows we could do with it.
