War of words over NTA funding for amenity on Cork's northside

A war of words has broken out between local councillors over a National Transport Authority (NTA) allocation for a northside amenity.

In a funding allocation announced last week, Cork City Council was awarded €28m for 2025 under the NTA Active Travel Investment Grants Scheme.

On top of the €28m allocated in active travel grants, the city council was also allocated €6,535,000 in other NTA funding streams, bringing to €34,535,000 the total amount allocated to the city.

At the time, the allocations were criticised by Thomas Gould, Sinn Féin TD for Cork North Central as “once again [proving] the neglect of northside infrastructure”.

The northside TD said the average project spend on northside projects was almost €100,000 less than the overall average per project.

Despite this, Mr Gould welcomed some of the northside funding allocations, among them €50,000 for the Nash’s Boreen Active Travel Scheme, but now one of his party colleagues has criticised the amount allocated, saying it is too low.

Kenneth Collins, Sinn Féin councillor for the city’s North West ward, has — alongside his party colleague, former councillor Mick Nugent — long been champion of the scheme, which, when completed, would see Nash’s Boreen closed to general vehicular traffic and enhanced for pedestrians and cyclists.

Mr Collins said he was extremely disappointed with the NTA Active Travel funding allocation, describing it as “a drop in the ocean”.

“I’m delighted that Nash’s Boreen has been selected for this funding, but it’s not enough; €50,000 is probably only going to cover the consultation fees,” he said. “This is a massive amenity on the north-west of the city, the jewel in the crown of the north-west as I call it, and €50,000 only assigned for it is not enough, it needs to get a lot more money. I can’t see anything being done out of that €50,000, it’ll probably go to consultation fees, but the community won’t see anything of that €50,000.”

However, one of Mr Collins’ fellow North West ward councillors strongly disagreed.

Fianna Fáil’s Tony Fitzgerald accused Sinn Féin of opportunistically criticising one part of an ongoing series of funding allocations.

“There is a massive suite of northside projects at various stages of development, all of the councillors have been fully briefed about them, but this is just typical of a campaign of negativity,” said Mr Fitzgerald.

“The Knockpogue Avenue, Knockfree Active Travel has got €250,000; we have Nash’s Boreen [which got] €50,000, we have the North Monastery school [which] got €20,000, the Northern Distributor Road got €600,000; Blarney village got €200,000; the Glen and the North Ring Road got €250,000, and the Kerry Pike pedestrian improvement programme got €100,000.”

Cork City Council and the NTA were both asked for comment.