FF councillors had lowest attendance at Cork City Council meetings in 2025

Fianna Fáil councillors had the lowest attendance at meetings last year, new figures released by Cork City Councilshow.

Five councillors had 100% attendance in 2025: The Green Party’s Oliver Moran, Fine Gael’s Des Cahill, Fianna Fáil’s John Sheehan, Labour’s Ciara O’Connor, and Independent Ireland’s Noel O’Flynn.

There were four councillors who attended less than 75% of the meetings: Margaret McDonnell (58%), Colm Kelleher (64%), and Terry Shannon (73%), all of Fianna Fáil, and Fine Gael’s Shane O’Callaghan (64%).

As well as the monthly full council meeting which all councillors attend, there are multiple committee meetings for which attendance is taken, so the total meetings a councillor is due to attend depends on how many committees they are on, with committees including housing and transportation.

The most meetings in total were attended by Fianna Fáil’s Seán Martin, who went to 45 meetings, and Labour’s Peter Horgan, who went to 44 — both had a 96% attendance rate, and the higher level of meetings they were scheduled to attend reflects the fact they are both on a number of committees.

Mr Moran and Mr Cahill, both of whom had 100% attendance, went to 36 meetings each, while Fianna Fáil’s Tony Fitzgerald (93%), Sinn Féin’s Kenneth Collins (98%), and Fine Gael’s Damian Boylan (98%) each went to 35.

Also on the list of low attendees are two councillors who were elected to the Seanad at the end of January 2025, Labour’s Laura Harmon, who attended two of her three meetings that year, and Garret Kelleher, who attended zero of four.

Ms Harmon was replaced by Ms O’Connor, who attended all 22 of her scheduled meetings, and Gary O’Brien, who replaced Garret Kelleher, attended 27 of 29.

Overall, not counting Garret Kelleher and Ms Harmon, the Progressive Alliance grouping of Labour, the Greens, and Social Democrats had best attendance, at 92% for its seven councillors. 

This was followed by Sinn Féin’s four councillors at 88%, Fine Gael’s five at 87%, and the independents grouping of Mr O’Flynn of Independent Ireland, Brian McCarthy of Solidarity — People Before Profit, Ted Tynan of the Workers’ Party, and Independents’ Kieran McCarthy, Albert Deasy and Paudie Dineen, who attended a combined 83% of meetings.

Fianna Fáil’s nine councillors had the combined lowest attendance at meetings, just below the independents group, at 82%.