Cork City Council chief executive provides context around 'arses need kicking' comment made on visit to social housing

CORK City Council chief executive Ann Doherty has moved to provide context around comments she made on Monday night following a visit to social housing at Noonan’s Rd and St Finbarr’s Rd.

Tenants of the 60-year-old development had accused the council of having “abandoned” them in rodent-infested, mould-ridden dilapidated homes. After The Echo highlighted their plight, Ms Doherty visited the neighbouring developments with the assistant chief executive, Brian Geaney, and the city architect, Tony Duggan.

Speaking to residents during the visit, Ms Doherty said she intended to “sit down with the housing maintenance team. I mean some of you showed me things and told me things that a couple of arses need kicking, to be honest, because it’s not acceptable, and that will be dealt with.”

The comments, reported by The Echo, were described by city councillor Ken O’Flynn in a letter addressed to Ms Doherty on Wednesday as “deeply disrespectful” and he claimed they had caused “tremendous hurt, disappointment, and confusion” among local authority staff.

However, Ms Doherty, in an interview with The Echo on Thursday, said that when she had made her public comments on Monday night, they had been informed by an earlier, private conversation with a tenant on St Finbarr’s Rd, and she had, in fact, been referring to the actions of a private contractor working on behalf of Cork City Council.

Ms Doherty said she had been referring to an allegation made to her by a resident that a person working on behalf of Cork City Council had moved rubbish from the back of one house into another, vacant unit.

“That was the motivation for my comment … and just before we came outside and we were all talking together, she called me and she said ‘That was done by a contractor’ and I said ‘Doesn’t matter, it’s done on our behalf, I stand by my point that asses would need to be kicked if someone did that’,” she said.

“When then we were doing the summary … I looked at [the woman who had made the allegation and one of her neighbours] and I said ‘Things have been brought to my attention that I have said asses need to be kicked about, and they will, if required.

“That was the context,” Ms Doherty said.

“It was half past ten at night, we were all standing around there. I wasn’t talking about any particular staff, or group of staff, it was very much around an occurrence.” Ms Doherty said the staff of Cork City Council do the best job they can, and were all motivated to do the right thing.

“There isn’t a person I believe that gets out of bed in the morning thinking ‘How can I do my job badly’.

“They don’t always have the tools they need to do their job, in the sense of resources are limited, et cetera, but that’s a context, but my comment was not about a generalisation, it was very specific to something,” she said.

Ms Doherty said that she was following up on the allegations made against the private contractor, and she said the controversy was distracting from what had been a very positive meeting with tenants on Noonan’s Rd and St Finbarr’s Rd.

“I’m really concerned that we’re distracting from the substantive issue... that Noonan’s Rd needs to be redeveloped,” she said.

“We committed to the council that we would go and do a site visit, we met an amazing community, wonderful people who have lots of challenges, so I would prefer to be focusing my energy at the moment, and the energy of my staff, on finding a pathway to making the decisions that need to be taken in order to address the issues that present in Noonan’s Rd.”

Cork City Council was asked by The Echo for the name of the private contractor in question so a right of reply might be offered to them.

A spokesperson for Cork City Council said they were not in a position to name any contractor, but were committed to working with the residents of Noonan’s Rd and St Finbarr’s Rd to address the issues of immediate concern to the tenants.