Kevin O'Donovan explains why media will no longer to allowed attend Cork County Board meetings

CORK County Board secretary/CEO Kevin O’Donovan has defended the decision to preclude media from attending monthly meeting of the county committee, citing financial, commercial and legal sensitivities.

Next Tuesday sees the first county board meeting of the year take place but on Friday a bulletin from the most recent management committee meeting was released, outlining a decision taken to only allow members of the press to attend the annual convention in December.

Cork chiefs have taken the approach of mirroring the GAA’s Central Council by issuing reports of monthly gatherings and where annual Congress is open to the media. O’Donovan acknowledges that the move will have critics but feels that debate could benefit.

“It’s been something that we had considered with a while and we would have discussed it throughout last year,” he said.

It’s high-octane stuff now in terms of Cork county committee, in terms of finance, in terms of commercial, in terms of legal.

“All of these are ongoing issues and it’s never going to be otherwise, really. There are high levels of discussion at county committee meetings and we feel that, by having it for the clubs – 250 of them, all with delegates there – there will be more open discussion, on a two-way basis.

“The delegates can speak more freely, knowing that they won’t be quoted verbatim in the media and us likewise.

“We have been very open and honest in all of our meetings over the last five years. We feel that we can up the ante on that if people know that they can speak in confidence in an internal meeting.

SENSITIVE

“We will be re-balancing that with bulletins going out after our management committee meetings, which never happened before, giving all the decisions and all of the discussions, except when it comes to commercial, legal and sometimes financial.

“Some of that is sensitive stuff which is not for the public domain.”

While the information exchanged within meetings will be regulated, O’Donovan also pointed out that attendance is not necessarily ‘closed’.

“When you have commercial partners, that is on the basis of commercial sensitivity and confidentiality around it,” he said.

“It’s competitive information and you don’t hear those figures circulated in any other organisation. It’s internal and the management are entrusted – with the exception of me, they’re all elected and given the responsibility. They’re called the management committee for a reason.

“The county committee is a big decision-making forum for our clubs and anyone is entitled to stand for their club as a delegate – or to come in as a proxy, so there’s no closed meetings, they’re still very public.

“Then, county convention, media in the room for a full review of the year with everything on the table and that’s what you would have had last month.”

There is of course the possibility of a Chinese-whispers effect, but O’Donovan is keen to make clear that it is not a blanket silence from Cork.

“That’s a risk,” he said, “but we trust our clubs more than that.

If we’re ever asked for clarification by the media, we’ll provide it. Nobody can ever claim they were told something or ‘sources indicate’ – we’re available for comment.

“But there are still legal matters relating to the stadium that are ongoing and the commercial side, you have to respect the partners or they won’t engage with you if they think it’s open season on every piece of business they do with you.”