Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I start by thanking the staff of Cork City Council and Cork County Council who have been involved in the clean-up operation following Storm Ophelia. They have done tremendous work. I wish to note on the record of the House that it is very important councils are compensated, euro for euro and cent for cent, for the work they are doing and that central Government does not leave them to dig out funds from their own budgets for that work. I will be watching that one very carefully.

I welcome the fact that this issue is being debated in the Dáil tonight. It has played out as a local dispute but it is, of course, a national issue. First and foremost, this is not about Cork city and county; it is about Dublin and the rest of the country. Our capital has a population of more than 1 million but the next largest city, Cork, has a population of approximately 125,000. This massive imbalance is very unhealthy for the country as a whole. The imbalance will not be resolved by one boundary change, or even three or four changes for that matter. We need to have proper regional development backed up with investment. That said, a boundary change which would increase the population of Cork city from 125,000 to 225,000 is a positive step towards redressing the massive imbalance in the country. It is also a recognition of reality.

There has not been a boundary change for Cork city for more than 50 years, since 1965. As the current lord mayor of Cork city has pointed out, what has developed in the absence of a boundary change for more than 50 years is a necklace of suburbs and satellite towns around the city which are outside the city limits but, in effect, are part of the city itself. These satellite towns and suburbs, including places like Blarney, Glanmire, Little Island, Donnybrook, Douglas, Grange, Frankfield and elsewhere, are part of the Mackinnon proposals for an expanded city with an expanded boundary. These are areas which have far more in common with the likes of Turners Cross and Dublin Hill than they have with the likes of Drimoleague and Kanturk. That is just the reality and what Mackinnon does is simply recognise that reality and act on it.

The debate has focused, in large measure, on lines on maps, boundaries, territory and so on and there has been an absence of political and social content, which must change. Certainly that is something that Solidarity would seek to do. The key issue for people in Cork city and county, as it is in most of the rest of the country, is housing and the housing crisis. That crisis is at its sharpest in Dublin city, where rents and levels of homelessness are highest, but it is also acute in parts of Cork county and it is increasingly acute in Cork city too. Big employers, including multinational companies, are complaining publicly about the fact that when workers are drawn into the city to work in their enterprises, there is a major problem with finding basic accommodation at the moment. A senior official of Cork City Council, Mr. Pat Ledwidge, appeared before an Oireachtas committee recently and spoke about the scarcity of development land within the existing city boundaries. That fact is sometimes used by the bureaucrats in Cork City Council and the establishment parties within the council as an excuse for not acting on housing when there are things that could and should be done, even as things stand. Leaving aside the land in the control of the port authority, there is land in the docklands area in the hands of other State and semi-State bodies on which 3,000 houses could be built. I am referring to the likes of the old Ford site, some of the former ESB lands, the site owned by Iarnród Éireann, Howard Holdings land and so on. Some of these sites are in the direct control of NAMA. The State should charge NAMA with building social and affordable housing and put the necessary finance at its disposal. That being said, there is a scarcity of development land within the city boundary and one of the main positives of the extension is that it provides more land that can be used for housing in an expanded city. That is something that is clearly very much needed at the moment.

There needs to be a realistic and serious tone to this debate but many of the opponents of the changes are using wild and hysterical language. Councillor Bob Ryan of Fianna Fáil said recently that "If this document was produced under British rule, it would have brought about a revolution, and it should". Deputy Michael Collins has spoken about the decimation of rural communities and suggested that the extension would have consequences that are every bit as far reaching for rural Cork as Brexit has for Ireland. It does not-----

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