'I still believe we need to see everything': Call for Cork events centre documents to be published

LABOUR local area rep Peter Horgan has renewed a call for documents relating to the proposed Cork Events Centre to be published. The deadline for a decision on additional state funding is drawing closer.

Mr Horgan, who is running for a seat in the city’s South East ward in June’s local elections, said that the “chaos in the coalition”, with the resignation of Leo Varadkar as Taoiseach, “should not be a barrier to releasing the costs requested to start work on the event centre”.

“I still believe we need to see everything published,” said Mr Horgan. “The Government has indicated a deadline of end of Q1 this year, which is March 31. That means one of the last Cabinet meetings for the Taoiseach will have to deal with the event centre.

“I’ve written to the Public Accounts Committee and the Oireachtas committee on local government to investigate the value for money on this project to date.

“It’s mad that we’re no clearer on the final cost to the taxpayer or if there will be any provision for public oversight on the board of the event centre.”

'Detailed review'

In a recent response to a parliamentary question, the party was informed by the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage Darragh O’Brien that his department is undertaking a “detailed review” of documents submitted by Cork City Council, following the completion of detailed design on the project.

Mr O’Brien said there is “ongoing engagement” with city council.

“In order to maintain the integrity of the decision-making process, it is not my intention to release and/or publish the documents which have been submitted to date by Cork City Council.

“I expect that a decision on the events centre could be made in Q1 of 2024, but this does depend on the outcome of the ongoing review of the final business case and is ultimately a matter for government,” he added.

The minister said that €50m of grant funding for the project was approved by the Government in February 2022, “to support an investment of €35m by the successful consortium” and that “a potential, additional €7m of government funding was also approved at that time, to help cover construction-cost inflation arising from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic”.

However, it was noted that the final additional costs to the State, related to construction inflation, could only be determined when the final, detailed design of the project was completed.