Council watch: Notes from February's all-council meeting

City Councillors voted to adopt the Climate Action Plan in last night's monthly meeting. The local authority is also going it alone in staging this year's city marathon as Davis Events calls it quits.

On the same day top political brass including the Tánaiste Micheál Martin and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Simon Coveney were in town to officially open the €215m Dunketlle Interchange, city councillors approved the local authority’s Climate Action Plan.

The Climate Plan opened to public consultation last November and received 72 submissions.

The Plan will form the backbone of Cork City Council’s actions to “drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2030” according to a press release which was issued after last night’s meeting.

Removing on street parking at several locations around the city, including at the Mardyke and Clontarf Street as part of upgrading, improving and establishing new bus routes for BusConnects was also discussed at last night’s meeting.

City executives confirmed that around a dozen on street parking places will be removed as part of the new Mardyke terminus.

In the list of questions submitted by Councillors to the City Council before this month’s meeting Paudie Dineen (Independent) - recently returned from a cycle study tour to Utrecht - asked one of the more unorthodox. It’s worth putting down here in full, as essentially he’s calling for the scrapping of the temporary bus corridor through St Patrick’s Street because he thinks…

a) Bus Éireann are failing to deliver buses through St Patrick’s St

and

b) ???????

His question in full:

In view of the many recent closures of Small to Medium enterprises in Cork City Centre and with many more to come in the weeks ahead and taking into consideration that Bus Eireann has to date failed to provide an adequate and reliable public transport service to/from Cork City Centre I ask the CEO to reverse or set in motion the pathway to reverse the Councils previous decision to provide a Bus Corridor and close St. Patrick's Street to regular traffic from 3pm to 6.30pm each day. It is imperative that we as a Council do everything we can to prevent any further closures and save as many jobs as we can in our City Centre therefore it is also imperative that we act in a positive way to increase footfall create stability for SME's and encourage the general public back into the City Centre. If and when Bus Eireann can live up to its expectation/obligations to provide a robust & reliable public transport service we can if needs be then as a Council review this decision.

In response, the City Council acknowledged that while business conditions are indeed tough, they won’t be changing direction.

Elsewhere, a disposal to allow Sample Studios continue to use The Lord Mayor’s Pavilion in Fitzgerald Park was passed at a cost of €100 per annum up to the end of 2026.

The Council also confirmed to Cllr Kenneth O’Flynn (Independent) on the news we reported in last week’s Friday View, that the restoration for the Firemen’s Rest has cost €200,000 so far. The project is ongoing and more payments are due.

In one of his motions, Cllr Oliver Moran proposed that the City Council develop a portal “for the reporting of issues with storm drains by members of the public; and provide traders groups and residents associations with advice on maintaining and clearing storm drains in the public realm.”

In response to Cllr Orla O’Leary (Sinn Féin), the Council Executive confirmed that repair work on the flats at Clashduv Road, Sycamore Place and Togher Road will commence at the end of February. The Council expects work on each complex to take around four to six weeks.

Sticking with housing and accommodation, in response to a question from Cllr Dan Boyle (Greens), the Council Executive said they expect to deliver a total of 3,520 social and affordable homes by May of this year (from June 2019).

The Council also said that in roughly the same time period it has returned a total of 911 vacant homes; just over 200 were returned in 2023.

And finally, Cork City Council is going solo for this year’s Cork City Marathon which will be staged at the beginning of June. The City Council confirmed that Davis Events will no longer be involved in helping staging the race.

Davis Events, the Dublin-based events management company, came in for some flack last year with water stations being waterless on what was on of the hottest weekends of the year. There were also some raised eyebrows about the real number of particpants who lined out. We contacted Davis about this and other matters, alas we heard nothing, and now their race is ran.

The City Council thanked them their service.

Editor’s note: The email version of Council Watch stated the Firemen’s Rest Q was from Kenneth Collins. It wasn’t, rather it was from Kenneth O’Flynn. Apologies.