Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for being here this afternoon. We are dealing with very important legislation which will have an effect on the future development of our country and the city of Cork. I want to speak about Cork in particular. We have allocated €155 million to the city of Cork for the acquisition and building of more than 624 housing units, and I want to focus on that for a moment. There is a whole of Government approach to Rebuilding Ireland, and I hope that as part of future Finance Bills and budgets we can look at how we can incentivise the private sector to build. I attended a briefing with Cork City Council yesterday morning where its social housing ambitions and plans were discussed. However, the city council is almost building more houses than the private developer, and that cannot be right. A balance must be struck. In particular, in Barrack Street, part of Douglas Street and in the inner city of Cork, we can have a scheme to encourage living over shops and encourage regeneration through tax incentive schemes. Those schemes have existed in the past, but they can be brought back again to incentivise and acquire lands and buildings. In certain sections there are problems with capital allowances and stamp duty, but this is about ensuring we take the investment we have made in Cork, for example, the public realm in Barrack Street, and incentivise either the local authority or a developer to intervene and make it habitable. Vast parts of that area of the city are not inhabited. As part of the national capital development plan, or Ireland 2040, we have an ambition and strategic vision for the development of Cork, and I want to ensure that with a combined approach, working with local government, we will see an emphasis on collaboration to develop more social housing in Cork.

It is also about ensuring that the city of Cork, and the county, has the ability to reach its full potential in the context of increasing employment in order that the shared vision can be realised. We are talking about having a total population of 500,000 in Cork by 2050 and having 120,000 jobs in Cork in the next 30 years. That requires a facilitation by Government, which should have a collaborative approach with other stakeholders to ensure that we have sufficient infrastructure. Cork should also be designated as a complementary city or location to Dublin. It is also about Cork being connected.

I want to promote the idea of Cork as a place of opportunity. Cork city and county council put together a joint statement which outlined a vision and a roadmap for the future. I am a small bit concerned about one area, and that is the issue of aviation. The Dublin Airport Authority, DAA, is the umbrella body which drives Cork Airport. The airport has experienced huge success in recent years, and Niall McCarthy and his team deserve immense credit and praise. However, it is critical that the transatlantic route is continued, especially in the off-season. As the Minister of State knows, load factors are difficult to estimate, but we need to ensure that Cork Airport, the second largest airport in the country, supporting 4,500 jobs, has the support to promote and market the North American route. It is not just about key infrastructure and investment but also about having a focus for the future. Central to that is the airport and the transatlantic flights.

This is about people and having the economic conditions in place in terms of housing and office space. It is also about connectivity in a global sense, allied to business development and innovation, and governance and marketing. I hope that as a consequence of what we are trying to achieve through the Action Plan for Jobs, Rebuilding Ireland and Ireland 2040, we can do that in Cork.