Senator Pat Casey is calling for the consultancy period into the Visitor Experience and Management Masterplan for Glendalough and the Wicklow Mountains National Park to be stalled because it currently isn t fit for purpose.
Public consultation runs until March 12 and is mostly being facilitated through the Wicklow.ie Council Consultation website, with a series of Zoom virtual drop-in sessions with the consultant team.
Senator Casey operates the Glendalough Hotel and has been contacted by over 50 members of the local community who were dissatisfied with how the drop-in sessions worked.
He feels the consultancy period should be halted until public meetings can take place again to ensure the local community has as much input into the plans as possible.
Senator Pat Casey didn t have long to dust himself off after his General Election disappointment before he threw himself into the reckoning for a Seanad seat.
The Glendalough based hotelier was prompted to run for the Seanad to provide voice for rural Wicklow after all five TDs elected in Wicklow hailed from Bray or Greystones.
He was first elected to Wicklow County Council in 2004 and was Chairman 2012 to 2013. He won a Dáil seat at the first time of asking in 2016, before narrowly losing at last year s General Election. It s hard to believe that its only a year since the General Election, said Senator Casey.
The shocking loss is jeopardising the business said Senator Pat Casey who owns the hotel.
In light of the Level 5 restrictions being re-introduced Senator Casey said there is no evidence to prove that the hospitality sector is a major contributor to the spread of pandemic.
Senator Casey said he is extremely frustrated with what he regards as the unfair way in which the hospitality sector is being treated. I cannot express the words at the moment about the way the hospitality sector has been treated. These are people s livelihoods and families are being affected. This yo-yo effect is driving us insane and crazy. It is all about personal responsibility.
Mary Byrne is cheerfully full of surprises. And the first surprise comes just a few moments into our interview. Meet me at the monastery steps , she tells the reporter. So that is where we rendezvous - on the steps under the arch beside the Glendalough Hotel.
The arch and the steps are obvious landmarks but a pace or two beyond is our first example of the unexpected. She touches a stone slab on our right and there, under her fingers, if you look closely, is a cross scratched into the stone.
In a place littered with iconic, blockbuster reminders of Ireland s Christian heritage, the crude simple cross is a more low-key piece of our history. Most of the hundreds of thousands of people who come to this famous place each year never notice it. Indeed, Mary admits that she too was unaware of its presence for decades until someone pointed it out.