Cork City Councillors to vote on motion to rescind request for funding of Event Centre

Eight years on the Event Centre has not progressed beyond the infamous sod turning photo opportunity featuring Minister Simon Coveney. Tonight's City Council vote is another footnote in the saga.

An artists' impression of the proposed Cork Event Centre. Credit: G-NET 3D

A special meeting will take place in City Hall this evening in which councillors will vote on a motion to rescind the request for additional funding from central government for the Event Centre.

The matter of funding was raised by Cllr Lorna Bogue, An Rabharta Glas-Green Left, at the all-council meeting held earlier this month. Cllr Bogue forced the motion under a Section 140 of the Local Government Act.

That motion, co-signed by Cllr Ted Tynan on the Workers’ Party and Brian McCarthy, of the Solidarity Party - People Before Profit, in full states that “Cork City Council rescinds the request for additional funding from central government in respect of the contract with BAM for the Cork Event Centre and instead secures central government funding for a publicly-owned and operated Cork Event Centre.”

A briefing was held earlier this month for Councillors and the media in which the Event Centre was lightly covered. Cllr Bogue did not attend that briefing.

That same week Anne Doherty, Cork City Council boss, appeared on RTÉ’s Prime Time and went into a lot more detail about the Event Centre and some of the reasons why eight years on from the sod turning the site on South Main Street is still vacant. However, she refused to be drawn on how much extra funding the Council is asking from central government.

Cllr Bogue says she has not been provided with the information to which she and other councillors are entitled to.

The numbers game. Cork City Council projections from a 2020 briefing doc.

”This includes the contract with BAM, the arrangements for central government financial support and for concrete information about the design and implementation of the project that a councillor for the contracting authority should reasonably expect to be provided with.

“⁠I do not expect the council to heed my warning at the meeting tomorrow, but it should be understood by the Chief Executive that she cannot advance this project in a vacuum of local accountability and that the prospects for this white elephant actually being realised are much slimmer than the ruling parties who are in election mode would like people to think,” Cllr Bogue told Tripe + Drisheen.

“Fundamentally, Simon Coveney’s blushes are not worth €100million of taxpayers’ money,” Cllr Bogue said, adding that she questioned how committed BAM are to completing the development especially as they let planning permission run out on the former Tax Office site on Sullivan’s Quay, adgacent to where the Event Centre is to built.

Tánaiste Micheál Martin, in town last week for the opening of the €215m Dunkettle Interchange, was bullish on the prospects of the Event Centre. However, that has long the established line of the Government parties. According to The Irish Examiner, an extra €35m and €45m is being sought from the government to go with the €50m that’s already been committed to the Event Centre.

Peter Horgan, a Labour Party representative running in local elections this summer, has also been critical of transparency around the Event Centre. Speaking to Prime Time he also raised the issue of governance.

"We won't have a say on the Event Centre after it opens. We won't have a member on the board," he added.

The special meeting will be held in council chambers in Cork City Hall at 5pm. Tuesday February 20. It will be streamed online here.