Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I take it that the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donovan, is here to reply to this matter. With the greatest respect, he will not necessarily be aware of the situation but this is the third occasion on which I have raised this as a Topical Issue matter and on which it has selected been for debate. Whatever about not being available on one occasion, on each occasion the Minister, Deputy Madigan, has not been available to come before the House.

That is not good enough. To be honest, it smacks of disrespect and a lack of interest in this project. I know the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Coveney, is doing his best and we will get to the issues at play, but Deputy Madigan is the senior Minister in this Department and on three occasions she has failed to come before the House to discuss this very important issue, a crucial issue for Cork and the region. That is not good enough. Whatever about once, to be missing on three occasions is just not good enough.

I will read the Minister of State some of a very lengthy piece about this ongoing saga that was in the Irish Examiner on Monday. The people of Cork are sick and tired of hearing about it. Unfortunately it has been dragging on for years and years, and progress is slow. The following is from the piece by Mr. Eoin English:

It was a few weeks before Christmas when the chief executive of Cork Chamber, addressing their Dublin dinner event, imagined the Cork of 2040 and spoke of his hope of seeing thousands of concert goers flooding into a gig at the venue earmarked for South Main Street. The ripple of laughter through the room at the mention of the stalled project spoke volumes.

Hard to blame the audience for sniggering really given the amount of announcements, assurances and timelines that have come and go since the outline of a new funding deal was agreed in principal almost one year ago, since the sod turning almost three years ago, and since the tender for the initial €20m in state-funding was awarded to developers BAM just over four years ago.

I was at that dinner, and the reaction is described accurately. I do not believe it was malicious or anything like that. It was a resigned sort of laughter, as if to ask "Will we ever see progress on this?", which is the mood that exists. This is a project that has been mooted in one form or another since the late 1990s. It began to take real shape towards the end of the 2000s, and four years ago we were dealing with a concrete proposition which involved public investment. At that stage the cost was expected to be €53 million. It is now expected to be approximately €80 million.

It is now almost three years since the sod-turning. It is now a matter of fact that it was an election stunt, given where we are now. It became clear that there was a need for additional funding for this project. Cork City Council made an application in September 2017 to the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht for an additional €10 million in State funding. That application of September 2017 took a long time to be approved. Strictly speaking it still has not been approved. There was a lot of discussion in the background, or so we were told, trying to iron out difficulties around state aid and so on and seeking the advice of the Attorney General. My understanding from speaking to the city council is that this was an application for state aid, that is, for a grant. There was no indication at any stage beforehand that this was to be a loan. I welcomed the Minister's statement that the Attorney General's advice, given just before Christmas, was that the additional €10 million could be given. Now it appears that €9 million of this will be given as a repayable loan to the developer. Was that the request that came in from the city council? I sincerely doubt it. At what stage did it become clear to the city council that it would be a repayable loan? The city council, which is already under financial pressure, is asking questions about the viability of the project. Everyone in Cork wants this to happen. I do not want it to be suggested that we do not want this to happen, but we need clarity.

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