Cork city taskforce will be in place by mid-February, insists Taoiseach

The Cork city taskforce is to be up and running by mid-February, Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said.

It comes amid concerns that €140m in Government funding promised to Dublin city, after the publication of its taskforce report in October 2024, has still not been delivered.

Six Cork TDs — Fianna Fáil’s Pádraig O’Sullivan and Seamus McGrath; Social Democrats’ Pádraig Rice and Liam Quaide; Labour’s Eoghan Kenny; and Sinn Féin’s Thomas Gould — last week tabled parliamentary questions asking the Taoiseach when the long-awaited taskforce would be established.

Mr Martin said: “We have met with the council, universities, and others. Following meetings between my officials and Cork City Council, draft terms of reference for Cork city are at an advanced stage.

“A follow-up meeting with the council’s chief executive has been scheduled for next week, and I expect the terms of reference to be finalised and submitted to the Government in the near future,” he added.

“I hope we conclude that work and, in the next two to three weeks, we go to the Government and we establish the group, which will focus on the city centre.”

In reply, Mr McGrath said: 

“I understand it may not be called a taskforce, and that is fine.”

His comment came amid assertations from the Taoiseach previously that the naming of the project was delaying the process. This after a city council spokesperson recently told The Echo that the term ‘taskforce’ has “connotations of negativity”. No clarity on what the name will be was provided by Mr Martin.

Dublin Social Democrats TD Gary Gannon, speaking on behalf of Mr Quaide and Mr Rice, said that the report from the Dublin taskforce was released in October 2024, a full year after it was announced by the Government “to great fanfare, and there still has not been a button given over”.

He said Dublin City Council had set up a working group for implementation.

“All it is missing is the €140m that was promised by the Taoiseach’s Government last year,” said Mr Gannon.

Mr Martin assured him the money would be allocated as required, adding: “You do not just send a dollop straight up.”

Pádraig O’Sullivan told The Echo that the whole project had to move faster.

“The taskforce needs to be financed and resourced, and whatever recommendations emanate from it need to be implemented,” he said.

It comes as Cork city’s Labour councillors, Peter Horgan, Ciara O’Connor, and John Maher, reiterated their stance that there is no need for duplication of a city taskforce, as the building blocks of any such taskforce are in the city deal already passed by local representatives.

They said any Government funding should, instead, be allocated to the council project.