Cork City Futures Group 'too Dublin-based' to understand Leeside

Concerns have been raised that membership of the Cork City Futures group, established by the government earlier this month, is too centralised and Dublin-based to understand Cork.

The group, formerly described as the Cork city taskforce, will be chaired by former Secretary General Mr Brendan Tuohy and comprised of members representing academia, business, An Garda Síochána, the arts and culture sector, tourism, transport and the community and voluntary sector.

City council chief executive Valerie O’Sullivan said at Monday night’s council meeting that membership will include a number of state agencies and the city council will be represented by assistant chief executive Brian Geaney.

Former Lord Mayor and Independent councillor Kieran McCarthy expressed concern about the group at Monday night’s council meeting, saying that while he welcomed the potential for government investment in Cork City’s future, “the strong government centralisation of this group, I have a huge issue with".

“I am very disappointed that local government members have no representative seat on the future’s group. The Lord Mayor of the day should at least be a member of this group. As councillors, we legally make or pass the city’s development plan, so to see this centralised plan is very frustrating.” Labour’s John Maher said it was “actually offensive” not to allow elected members any place on the committee, and councillors agreed that the Lord Mayor should be on the group, to represent all elected members.

Fine Gael’s Shane O’Callaghan expressed concern that no funding had been committed yet to bring about the recommendations, but Fianna Fáil’s Terry Shannon accused councillors of “cribbing” about the plans, saying that there will be funding provided by the government.

Ms O’Sullivan explained that the council “have had no hand act or part in the membership” of the group, and had already expressed interest in meeting and working with the taskforce’s chair.

She explained that the original idea was a repeat of the Dublin city taskforce, and the council worked with the Taoiseach’s department to ensure that a new type of group was put together.

While she acknowledged comments about centralisation, she said: “When was the last time the NTA, TII and Enterprise Ireland had to sit in a room and talk only about Cork city – this is our chance.”