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

I urge people across the country to speak out about the development in their own towns and villages. I encourage the people in Blarney and Tower in County Cork to speak out about their community and the facilities they need. At present, a large number - I suspect a majority - of households in that community have to travel quite some distance to do their weekly shop. Many people travel to Ballincollig. Many people travel to Blackpool. Many people feel that there are not supermarket facilities in their communities which operate at affordable prices. They go to Ballincollig and Blackpool, where the prices are too high in any case but maybe not as expensive as in Blarney and Tower. It is inconvenient for people, and not good from the point of view of the climate, that they are forced to get in their car and drive miles in and miles out every week to do a shop.

They want to see supermarket facilities in their own community. For obvious reasons, there is no question that tourism is important for Blarney, but it cannot rule to the exclusion of facilities there that people living in other communities of a similar size enjoy and expect to have.

I am not going to comment on the details of the case, but it is a known fact now that the owners of Blarney Castle are going to take a High Court action against a development that includes a hotel, some residences and a supermarket in the Blarney area, and a second case against a primary care centre. I will not drill down into that here, but as this plays out in the coming weeks and months, it is very important that the voices that are heard are not merely the proposers of the new developments and the owners of Blarney Castle who are in opposition to them but the ordinary people who live and are rearing their families in the communities of Blarney and Tower. They must speak out and say what they want. I have no doubt that one of the things they will say they want is supermarket facilities at something approaching affordable prices.

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