Carrigaline 'left behind' in terms infrastructure provision, meeting hears 

Carrigaline councillors have shared concerns that there are too many houses and not enough services in the town.

They spoke at a municipal district meeting today. 

Fine Gael councillor Jack White tabled a motion asking that other councillors “acknowledge the lack of infrastructure in Carrigaline, in light of the huge amount of residential development that has taken place in recent years”.

He also asked that the council issue an opinion to the planning policy unit and county council senior management.

“If we were to appraise the development of Carrigaline over the past three or four decades, and ask if enough has been done in terms of recreational amenities, school places, electricity and wastewater infrastructure, the answer would be no,” Mr White said at the meeting.

“There’s a strong case to be made that there should be no more housing going ahead in Carrigaline until adequate infrastructure is in place, but when you’re in a housing crisis like we are now, that’s impossible.

“People want housing, people need housing, so it’s a difficult position that towns find themselves in.”

He gave an example of some people losing power frequently when there are storms as evidence that the electricity infrastructure was not sufficient to serve the whole town.

“Carrigaline has been left behind in terms of the provision of infrastructure.

“The County Development Plan is going to have a critical role to play in what the future of Carrigaline looks like,” Mr White said.

His party colleague Una McCarthy shared her support for the motion.

“It’s clear that as more houses are being built, public services like healthcare [and] schools are increasingly strained,” Ms McCarthy said.

“We need to address that imbalance, because the town is growing year on year,” she said.

Fianna Fáil’s Patrick O’Donovan added that an additional special school may also be necessary soon, saying: “We don’t want a situation where housing in Carrigaline extends as far as Cork city, and we don’t want a town with hundreds of houses but nothing to do and nowhere to go, where people have to travel out to access services.” 

The motion was unanimously supported.