Fintan Warfield (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

From my understanding, the boundary in Cork is seen by many people as out of date. The last boundary revision, which extended to the east to the west, was in the 1960s. The northern and southern extent of the city dates from the 1940s, a time when Rochestown was a quiet village on the way to Passage West and when Grange and many other places were farmland. Sinn Féin is the only party that has maintained a consistent position of opposition to a merger of both councils. We are firmly of the view that a merger of the city and county councils would be disastrous. We believe Cork needs two local authorities with two separate executives and two separate elected bodies in order to be in a position to provide services to a satisfactory standard and to focus on the differing priorities of city and county. We believe there is a need for a separate county council based on the core rural areas - the large county towns and market towns - with a strong focus on agriculture, agrifood, rural development, tourism and fisheries.

It goes without saying that the focus and priorities of the county would be different from those of metropolitan Cork. There is a need for a separate strong metropolitan council with considerable focus on industry, investment, urban services and transport, with a focus on commuting and a strong strategy to support the areas in the commuter belt with a key emphasis on public transport. Cork needs to be a thriving city, county and region. It needs to be a counterbalance to Dublin, which is increasingly coming under pressure in areas such as transport, which is a complete mess and an embarrassment. The State needs Cork to complement Dublin rather than to be a threat to it. To do this we need strong, independent and well-funded local government with significant capital investment in transport infrastructure and public transport. The Government needs to prioritise these matters.

I will be engaging constructively with the Minister of State tomorrow but my fear is that ultimately, as long as Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil have control of the Customs House in Dublin, our local county halls will become more like shells and will be continually hollowed out.