Cork County Council's vital role in serving Ireland's biggest county
County Hall, headquarters for Cork County Council, illuminated in green to mark St Patricks Day. Pic: Brian Lougheed
Cork County Council impacts the daily lives of everybody in the region, from mammoth infrastructural tasks like keeping its 12,000kms of roads open and providing housing to supplying library books, protecting people from pollution and giving much-needed grant aid to the arts and community/sporting groups.
The extent of its services can be highlighted by the fact that in an average year its fleet of vehicles and accompanying outdoor staff travel the equivalent of to the moon and back nearly eight times.
It sounds like a staggering figure, but it is, after all, by far the biggest county in Ireland and unfortunately for many years it has not been appropriately funded by Central Government.
The local authority’s roads engineers and their staff have performed many ‘loaves and fishes miracles’ over the years, patching up roads with small budgets from the government. They’ve kept the show on the road, literally.
It has been estimated by senior officials that it would cost in the region of €800m to bring all the roads in the county up to an acceptable international standard.
In 2021, the council commissioned a comprehensive independent report, compiled by All-Island Research Observatory (AIRO) at Maynooth University, which showed that Cork County Council is not getting its fair share of funding from government departments for its size and population in comparison with other local authorities.
In particular, it highlighted that despite having the biggest road network of any local authority it got the fourth lowest allocation per kilometre. This caused uproar amongst councillors who lobbied Cork-based cabinet members in an effort to get a greater share of the pot.
The report also highlighted that it received less per capita for Clár funding and for LEADER funding.
Ironically, only a couple of weeks ago when the latest government roads funding allocations were announced County Cork had slipped even further down the list to the third lowest county per km of road.
In 2021, the National Roads Management Office estimated it would cost €750m to bring the county’s roads up to standard. In just three years that has increased by a further €50m and has not been helped by increasing rain and storm damage caused by Climate Change.
On May 31, 2019, the county ceded territory to the city council under the terms of the government’s Cork Local Government Review.
The county lost Ballincollig and Glanmire in the boundary revamp, but still retained the largest town in the county, Carrigaline.
Nevertheless, the county council expects a significant increase in the population under its control in the coming years and has to plan for that.
The current Cork County Development Plan 2022-2028 sets out a population growth of 59,000 in the county together with the creation of 36,000 additional jobs by the summer of 2028.
The development plan is a blueprint for future growth in the region. It is undertaken every six years or so and is the culmination of many hours of hard work and debate. Many councillors will attest to it being the hardest thing they have to do and several meetings associated with formulating it have often gone into the small hours of the morning.
Creating such a blueprint has become more difficult in recent years. Prior to the formation of Uisce Éireann (formerly Irish Water) the local authority was in charge of all wastewater and water supply infrastructure. That meant it could identify areas which were likely to expand and then plan the appropriate infrastructure to enable the building of more houses, industrial sites etc.
This has been hampered because it is now dependent on Uisce Éireann putting in place the infrastructure it needs in certain areas and this hasn’t been forthcoming in some cases because the utility hasn’t got the necessary funding.
A classic example of this is Dunmanway. There can be no more new houses or businesses hooked up to the wastewater system there because the current treatment plant is at capacity.
In addition, Uisce Éireann is in breach of its discharge licence because the outflow pipe for the treatment plant runs into a river which is in a SAC (Special Area of Conservation) and contains the endangered freshwater pearl mussel.
The utility has told the county council it will be five to 10 years before it can start upgrading the town's wastewater treatment plant to the required standards as it hasn’t got the adequate funding for such a project from the government.
Councillors and their officials have also had obstacles thrown in their way for planned further development along the railway corridor, especially between Carrigtwohill and Midleton, and in building a much-needed relief road in Mallow.
Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan has axed funding for the vital upgrade of the N25 between Carrigtwohill and Midleton for the past three years, which is putting the development of thousands of houses planned for the area in jeopardy because that section of road is overcapacity.
He only provided €300,000 this year towards plans for the Mallow bypass. That’s just enough money for the design team to keep working on the project until September.
Despite the obstacles being thrown in the council’s way by outside bodies, it is ploughing ahead with an ambitious scheme for house building.
Maurice Manning, the Council’s Director of Housing, has said he’s set a target to build up to 700 new social and affordable houses this year.
The council plans to do this in conjunction with approved voluntary housing bodies and it’s part of the local authority’s capital investment plan, which will see €927m spent primarily on such housing between this year and 2026.
The council is going to provide a lot more affordable housing schemes than in the past. This is in reaction to the rising cost of homes, which are now outside the reach of many.
The affordable housing scheme is designed for those who earn too much to qualify for social housing but too little to get a mortgage from a financial institution.
Affordable houses are provided to people at a discounted rate compared to the current market price.
The local authority is also ploughing significant money into upgrading its older stock of houses to ensure they are better insulated and more energy efficient. Heating older drafty houses can lead to ‘fuel poverty’ for tenants.
In total, the Council plans to spend €1.273 billion on ‘capital projects’ in the region up to the end of next year. The bulk of the money will be spent on housing and roads.
However, €54m has been set aside to upgrade all public lighting with LED bulbs, €117.5m for active travel and connectivity projects and €9.1m for ‘Safe Routes to Schools.’ The council’s Economic Development Unit is extremely active and has and continues to support start-up businesses with grants to enable them expand. It also operates e-centres in a number of towns which provide hotdesk working spaces unusually for one-person business operations.
The unit ploughs back a percentage of the money raised annually through rates on businesses into such projects.
It also has a very active tourism unit which helps promote the region at home and abroad and is behind the very successful Spike Island attraction.
It is also hoping to undertake further visitor-enhancing projects at Mallow Castle and at Camden Fort Meagher in Crosshaven.
Meanwhile, the council also provides grants on a regular basis for community groups and sporting organisation for enhancement projects. It also carries out town and village enhancement schemes and sponsors festivals, artists and heritage projects.
There is hardly a week goes by when it is not advertising for expressions of interest for such grant aid. A good proportion of this money comes from pay parking revenue.
Because of the size of the county, it is divided into three divisional areas — South, North and West. The latter two are both the size of Limerick City and County Council. Councillors representing those three areas meet once a month.
They meet twice a month at full council level, where most of the major decisions are made.
In addition, there are also eight municipal district councils — West Cork, East Cork, Cobh, Carrigaline, Kanturk/Mallow, Bandon/Kinsale, Fermoy and Macroom. These meet once a month.
Many councillors sit on special committees which also meet once a month. They focus on topics such as traffic and transportation, environment, tourism, enterprise, housing etc. and are usually used to formulate policy. Some also sit on the joint policing committee which meets four times a year.
