Two Cork city councillors make maiden speeches in the council chamber

Two new city councillors made their maiden speeches at Monday night’s full council meeting – Niamh O’Connor of the Social Democrats and Noel O’Flynn of Independent Ireland, who replaced new TDs Padraig Rice and Ken O’Flynn, respectively.

Ms O’Connor shared how proud she was to be a member of the council and to be improving the council’s gender balance. She paid tribute to recently elected TD Padraig Rice, who she said “was an extremely effective councillor” who was going to do “phenomenal work” in the Dáil.

She explained: “My agenda would align very much with Padraig’s. Cork city, as much as I love it, we could address the basics a little bit better — better footpaths, public toilets, drinking water, reliable public transport.

“Those are things I’ll be pursuing at council, those are the things I heard most on the doorsteps when I canvassed with Padraig.”

She also highlighted the importance of reflecting the strong opinions of the people of Cork city on issues such as Gaza, and urging the Government to pass the Occupied Territories Bill.

Mr O’Flynn recalled his previous time as a councillor and a TD, saying: “I now bring this wealth of experience to council. I look forward to making Cork better for all our citizens,” he said, highlighting roads infrastructure such as the North Ring Road, the Northern Distributor Road and the Cork to Limerick motorway.

Mr O’Flynn also highlighted the levels of house vacancy in the city as well as the homelessness figures, and welcomed the progress of the development in the Docklands, saying that he had made a similar proposal of this nature back in 1999.