County CE rejects ‘stale’ comment on Budget

Elected members of Cork County Council struggled to find much wrong with Budget 2024 as it was adopted this week, however some minor short fallings were identified with one councillor describing the budget as “a little stale”.

Bandon-Kinsale Cllr Gillian Coughlan, Fianna Fáil, suggested the new budget was merely “tinkering with the present” and is not as progressive as it could be. She described the budget’s allocation of €1.88 million for climate change and flooding as “paltry” in light of the recent flooding crisis in the county.

“I know we’re not the Dáil. We have restricted authority and we have restricted means but we do need to show leadership,” said the former county mayor.

Cllr Coughlan also stressed the importance of providing local employment. “We need to buy land to serve the growing population, to provide jobs locally so that there’s a real sustainability and really addressing the needs of the future.”

Responding to Cllr Coughlan’s comments, Chief Executive Valerie O’Sullivan rejected any suggestion that the new budget is stale, lacks leadership, and doesn’t look to the future.

“I reject all of those observations because they’re factually incorrect,” said Ms O’Sullivan.

“I just want to remind members that we were all-Ireland winners not two weeks ago in a 32 county Ireland for being the best local authority. That doesn’t happen because we’re tinkering with the present or because we’re stale. We have shown the way by doing things like Town Centre First before it became a byword of government, in housing by the Water -Rock plans that went on for many years and came to fruition with several landowners, by our public realm investment.

“Off-shore wind, we’re out ahead of it already. The Climate Action Plan up there for consultation at the moment. We were out ahead on dereliction and property management. Just because the system and legislation makes that go slow does not mean we’re not on top of it, we’re out ahead of it.”