New Mayor of Cork County aiming to secure additional funding from central government 

THERE was a full house in the chamber of Cork County Council as the authority held the first meeting of its new term, elected new mayor, West Cork Fianna Fáil councillor Joe Carroll, and paid tributes to the ‘ultimate Duracell bunny’, the outgoing County Mayor, Frank O’Flynn.

Family members and supporters of re-elected and newly elected members filled every available chair as the formalities of nominations and elections were observed to fill the roles of Mayor and Deputy Mayor as well as the various committees who carry out a significant proportion of the work of Cork County Council.

Much of the preparatory work had been done away from the council chamber as negotiating teams from the different parties held talks to decide who would be elected to the various positions over the next five years as well as setting out a work agenda for that term.

In the end, a broad alliance involving Fianna Fáil, Labour and the Independent members managed to agree an agenda and the division of posts with the name of Joe Carroll, who started off his career in local politics with his election to Skibbereen Town Council in 1999 before being elected to Cork County Council in 2004, emerging as the favoured candidate to be elected the first Mayor of the new term. 

Councillor Joe Carroll is the new Mayor of the County of Cork following a vote by members of Cork County Council.

Nominated by Councillor Seamus McGrath and seconded by Councillor Alan Coleman, Mayor Carroll will be the first Mayor for the newly elected Council.

A Fianna Fáil… pic.twitter.com/CGsn6lghwY

— Cork County Council (@Corkcoco) June 21, 2024

As Seamus McGrath, the Fianna Fáil leader on the council remarked, though he wasn’t elected in 2009, this allowed him to come back more full of energy than ever in 2014 and he has been re-elected at every time of asking since.

After a roll-call vote, the election result was announced – the Skibbereen councillor secured the necessary 28 votes while Anthony Barry of Fine Gael received 21 votes with six abstentions. 

Two of the Social Democrat councillors voted for Anthony Barry while the third councillor, Isabel Towse, was among the abstentions.

After receiving the chain of office from Frank O’Flynn, the new mayor thanked the Fianna Fáil, Labour and Independent pact which saw him elected to the ‘lofty position’ as he described it and lost no time in setting out his priorities for his term.

“My key priority is ensuring Cork County Council is properly funded by central government – which it’s not,” said the new mayor.

Mayor Carroll paid tribute to his predecessor for his energy, he agreed with Alan Coleman, the leader of the Independent councillors who described Mr O’Flynn as the "ultimate Duracell bunny".

The new mayor said he would disagree with Mr O’Flynn over his thanks for the recent additional allocation of €3.7m for the roads damaged by extreme weather events such as Storm Babet. 

“I regard it as an insult,” he said. “I was expecting €30m or €40m.” 

Among the other priorities the new mayor set out was a review of outdoor staffing levels and a new look at the quandary faced by young couples seeking a house because their incomes were too high to qualify for social housing but to low to secure a mortgage.

The election of the new deputy mayor of Cork County Council took place after numerous tributes from his colleagues to the new mayor. 

That post went to Independent, Martin Coughlan. 

The Macroom electoral area representative was elected with 30 votes while there were 22 votes for the Fine Gael nominee, Marie O’Sullivan from Bandon/Kinsale, and three abstentions.