Colm Burke (Cork North-Central, Fine Gael)

My concern is that it would be delayed further, given that we are already over 350 days in government. Even if we set up the task force in the morning, it would take 12 months to get the report and further time to set up an implementation mechanism. I am concerned about the timeframe in which this task force will be set up.

It is also important that the task force is inclusive. I accept that Cork City Council is playing a very important part in the development and growth of the city in the work it is already doing. For example, flood relief schemes are progressing. This is about making sure we include everyone in the process, for example, the city council, the chamber of commerce, the business community and the community organisations. If we go back to one of the best long-term plans that was done for Cork city and county, it was a combination of all of those elements together that produced the LUTS plan for Cork, which planned out where we were going over the following 20 years. I served on the Port of Cork for ten years and we were instrumental in making sure the Ringaskiddy development went ahead. Contracts have since been signed for the Ringaskiddy bypass road and work has started on that. There is also the whole process of moving all of the companies located in the Tivoli-docklands area down to Ringaskiddy, thereby opening up a whole area of land to be developed. However, the city centre is important and we should now do the work on that. The Tivoli-docklands area will not be developed until the Ringaskiddy bypass is completed.

We need to forward-plan for the city centre. There are many buildings that are underutilised but are suitable for either business or residential accommodation. We need to make sure we bring them all back into use and they are fully occupied.

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