County Mayor's Diary Cllr Christopher O’Sullivan

By the Mayor of Cork Cllr Christopher O’Sullivan

I have stood for election a few times now and I can tell you my nerves are definitely on edge every time!

But I have been lucky enough to have a great support network and am very grateful to my family and friends for this. I would also like to thank those who gave me their number one and assure you all that I will continue to reward your faith in me.

I’ve served as a councillor for West Cork since 2009 and it’s been fantastic to do so. To have been elected as Mayor of the County of Cork has been the highest point in my career to date and I’m both honoured and excited to have this opportunity.

It’s a privilege to represent county Cork for the year ahead. This represents a very interesting time for the county. We have new boundaries, a new council and the coming years will bring new challenges but also lots of opportunities.

I wholly believe in building on our past accomplishments while opening up new avenues for development. I am determined to deliver on a number of key issues such as housing and roads and will continue to advance the steps that have been taken in this regard to date.

For my own part, there are three areas of particular interest to me and I firmly believe that appropriate support and attention for these fields will benefit Cork county as a whole.

Some of you may be interested to know that I’m a birdwatcher and an avid wildlife enthusiast besides. Ireland has many exceptional conservation programmes in place, but to secure our diverse population of birds into the future, we need to be considerate of how our actions affect our environment.

A healthy environment is hugely important for another key focus of mine. We truly have a beautiful county, from coasts to mountains and we stand to gain a huge amount of domestic and foreign tourism through opening up and sharing our environment.

Finally, I’m very excited for the opportunity to utilise my role in promoting the incredible artistic talent we have in Cork. Year on year, we see some of the best performances, exhibitions, fairs and festivals produced by Cork artists. This is one of our greatest strengths.

I greatly look forward to working with you to advance the goals of county Cork. I have a very busy year ahead of me in which to cover a lot of ground throughout the county. I’m sure I’ll see you on the road!