'I will miss my colleagues': Long-serving Kinsale councillor to call it a day after 36 years of service

AS THE second longest-standing councillor in Cork County Council, Fine Gael councillor Kevin Murphy has decided to go out “on a high” after nearly four decades of public service.

The announcement that he would not run for election again came officially last September at the Cork South West Fine Gael convention for the Bandon-Kinsale Local Electoral Area (LEA), which was held in the Munster Arms Hotel in Bandon.

Speaking to The Echo about his resignation, which will come into effect this summer, Mr Murphy said: “I have a whole heap of things to do before I go, I’ve never been so busy.”

“I am resigning in June, and within the short period of time that I have left, I have to do what I can to support as many people as I can.”

It will be a bittersweet farewell for the long-serving councillor.

“I will miss the council, my colleagues, and I’ll miss the debates. There’s always great debate in the chamber. I’m happy to finish up my duty, I have a satisfactory amount of years done. I wouldn’t say I’m sad to leave, I’m going out on a high. I have 36 years of extraordinary unbroken service, and every single time I stood, I won my seat.”

Mr Murphy, a retired farmer from Wintsmills Kinsale, was first co-opted to take the late Denis O’Reilly’s seat in 1988.

Throughout his established career of serving as a public representative for Fine Gael, Mr Murphy has served as the party leader in Cork County Council, group chairperson of the Cork County Council from 1998-1999 and served as the Mayor of County Cork in 2011.

Speaking on his decision to go forward for the co-option in 1988, Mr Murphy said: “I won the co-option handsomely and I stuck at it the whole time from there on in.”

“Kinsale town hadn’t a member of the council for forty years before that and I was selected by the party to run. I was unlucky to not get elected to a higher authority, but I was overjoyed to get on so well over the years in the roles I did have,” he added. 

“I quickly grabbed on to what my function should be. People trusted me, and I was happy to bend over backwards to help them out,” he said.

Ahead of his resignation, Mr Murphy highlighted a number of problem areas that the Bandon-Kinsale LEA faces, which he hopes will be tackled by his party’s elected local councillors going forward.

“Number one is the likes of a sewage system upgrade for Ballinspittle, and number two on my list is an affordable housing scheme for Kinsale.”

Speaking on the impact felt by the community within Ballinspittle, Mr Murphy said that the village is suffering due to the lack of improvements seen over the last few years, specifically in regards to an efficient waste management system, and subsequently the lack of construction in the area due to such roadblocks.

“It’s having an enormous effect on the people of the community,” he said. “In the 2016 county development plan, we had planned that Ballinspittle would have 100 houses built in the village, in the hopes that the treatment plan would be upgraded then. Unfortunately 2016 came and went, with little progress made, and zero houses built. There has been nothing built there over the last four or five years, and the septic tank serving the private development of Kilmore Woods in Ballinspittle is incapable of taking any further homes, it is under ferocious pressure.”

In relation to the progress made on an affordable housing scheme for Kinsale, Mr Murphy said: “It’s almost there. I have absolutely broken every door in the place to get that in and up and running, so hopefully phase one will start in the next few months.

“We don’t have any affordable scheme in Kinsale at all,” he said. “It’s very important that this gets running. There’s never enough social and affordable housing, people are crying out for homes.”

Detailing his plans for retirement, Mr Murphy cheerfully said: “I’ve been asked if I have plans every week since announcing and, in general terms, no. I do know I need some time to relax, I’ve been very stressed over the years.

“My wife and I haven’t gotten away for almost six years now,” he added. 

HOLIDAY BEFORE THE HARVEST

“So I have teased out a holiday straight after the local elections, to get away before the harvest, you know, we have to be home for the harvest. My son has taken over the family farm, but I’d still go for a bit of this and a bit of that. I’m in my elder years now, but thank God my health is good, I’m going to try to keep moving, and keep myself fit.”

Mr Murphy also expressed his thanks to the people of his constituency, saying: “I’ve tried to do everything I could for people, and I’m still open to offering people help and advice when they need it. I’m very happy that all those people out there fully supported me year on year with no change.

“I have lots of good memories,” he added. 

“I have a magnificent list of success stories, and I think I can safely say that the people of Kinsale and Bandon have benefited substantially from the work I have been involved in. Back in the 80s Kinsale was starting to take off, and I tried to publicly admire that it was an up and coming town. It took off big time as a tourist destination in the last 20, 30 years, and I honed in on this. We had failures of course, but I’m not one bit sorry for doing as much as I could for the electoral area.”

He had some words of advice for his fellow party members running for election this June: “Carry on and work as hard as you can on the behalf of your constituents and the party.”

Speaking on Mr Murphy’s resignation, fellow party member and first-time electoral candidate John Michael Foley said: “Kevin has spent his whole life in politics, and would be certainly looked on by the likes of me as a young fella coming in as a senior figure and a solid figure. He’s a wealth of knowledge, and was never afraid to get his point across to represent the people.

“I would have the highest admiration for Kevin,” he added. “He’s a huge loss to Cork County Council, but he certainly will continue to give us any backup we need as we come into the role. I would say that he’s too fresh to retire, but I wish him the very best of luck with going back to day-to-day farming and day-to-day life.”