Colm Burke
Cork North-Central · Fine Gael · Ireland
“That is not the Department's fault but the FAI was not asked any questions about bringing this land back into use for sporting activities in Glanmire. There are 30 acres lying idle. Not a sod has been turned and no planning application has been made. We are now getting mixed messages about what is actually going on.”
“The Department is still giving out money to the FAI and not calling it to account for getting the land from a Government agency, the local authority, and leaving it to sit idle, while clubs are now refusing to take in new members because they do not have capacity for them. It is time for the Department to step in.”
“It is ten years later and not a sod has been turned. I got then Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, to come to Glanmire in 2023 where we met 18 of the sports clubs. As a result of that meeting, the FAI started negotiations again with the county council.”
“The Department of Culture, Communications and Sport provides funding to the FAI on an annual basis. I understand it is more than €6 million. Can the Minister of State ascertain why 30 acres of land in Glanmire, Cork, which was leased to the FAI by Cork County Council in 2017, has remained idle?”
“I am absolutely astonished at that reply. The county council told councillors that it was leasing 12.5 acres to Riverstown FC rather than the full site. What the FAI is telling the Minister is totally different.”
“There has been a substantial delay in issuing Irish residency permit, IRP, cards. Quite a number of my constituents have been let go from employment because they did not get their cards within the 12-week period.”
The complete record
Every one of 381 lines we hold for Colm Burke, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 5 of 8.
“I thank the Minister. I welcome the development that has occurred. The collaboration between the HSE, the Department of Health and the IPU is a welcome development. The agreement that has been reached shows that providing healthcare in the community is extremely important. Progress is being made in this area. Over recent years, pharmacies have been playing a greater role in providing healthcare. It is important for that to continue to grow. What has been agreed is safe, it is equitable and it is about efficient delivery of healthcare. There is a number of areas in the agreement about digitalisation. We are far behind in that whole area. Compared to the rest of Europe, we are behind most other EU countries in digitalisation.”
“It is projects like that that can be helpful to people, especially in rural communities where people can feel very isolated. I refer to the importance of community activity and making sure we have that support in place for people who may not be involved in sports clubs but want to get involved in cultural events.”
“I thank the Minister. It is accepted that the more people get out of their own homes and are involved in community activities makes a huge difference to their mental health. It is important we continue to promote that but it is important there is co-ordination between Departments as well, especially regarding the cultural area. The Minister mentioned the issue of nursing homes. One example of people getting involved is a group in my own constituency, Mayfield Men's Sheds, whose members visit two different nursing homes every week providing music. They have a very good musical team. A number of them are very talented and they provide entertainment in the nursing homes, which is extremely helpful for the nursing homes.”
“During the past two years, Israel has engaged in a sustained campaign of total destruction, carnage, starvation and genocide in Gaza. In a recent meeting, Mr. Herzi Halevi, former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, acknowledged that more than 200,000 people have been killed or injured in Gaza. Internal Israeli intelligence reports indicate that 80% of the casualties are civilians. Approximately 80,000 children have been killed or injured in Gaza in the past two years. Speaking on Israeli television, the former head of Israeli military intelligence, Mr. Aharon Haliva, said that 50 Palestinians must die for every Israeli killed on 7 October and it does not matter if they are children. The deaths were necessary, he said, as a "message to future generations" of Palestinians.”
“Barak described how Benjamin Netanyahu encouraged and facilitated the transfer of around $1.5 billion from Qatar to Hamas over a period of years. That was part of a calculated policy to split the Palestinian movement and prevent a two-state solution. In the months prior to 7 October 2023, repeated warnings from their own espionage services regarding a possible major Hamas attack were ignored by the Israeli authorities. Warnings from Egypt in the days immediately prior to the 7 October attacks were also ignored, and in the final hours before Hamas attacked, further warning signs were not fully responded to by the Israeli security services. Even now, in a further twist, Israeli security forces are arming Palestinian militias and criminal gangs opposed to Hamas. The second anniversary of the attacks of 7 October is next week.”
“Earlier this year, he called for the killing of all Palestinian males and has echoes of fascist ideology. There are several conservative Jewish rabbis who are highly critical of Zionism. They see it as a rejection of traditional Judaism and its values. The oppression and crimes committed against Palestinian people for many decades were not a justification for the Hamas assault on 7 October 2023. What happened on 7 October was not a justification for Israel's two-year assault on Gaza. Hamas was and is a bloodthirsty terrorist organisation. However, we must not forget that for many years Benjamin Netanyahu and his criminal crew supported Hamas as part of its strategy to undermine the Palestinian Authority. Writing in the Financial Times on 23 May, former Israeli Prime Minister Mr.”
“Article 1 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which came into effect in 1951, is very clear: "The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish." It is now beyond question that Israel is guilty of committing war crimes in Gaza and that Israel is now committing the crime of genocide in Gaza. Senior Israeli politicians have no qualms expressing publicly the most extreme positions. On Monday, Nissim Vaturi, deputy speaker of the Israeli Parliament said, "We want to remove all the Arabs from Gaza" and the West Bank. He previously referred to Palestinians as scum and subhuman.”
“The Ryder Cup will take place in two years' time and work has already started on the roads there. It will have an effect on the area because a huge number of tourists will come to the country during that period. For them to see the road infrastructure without any evidence that we are trying to improve it will not be helpful. This issue needs to be prioritised because of the number of people who will travel to Ireland and to that region during that period.”
“The big challenge we have is the growth in businesses and in the number of people having to travel to work in Limerick, Mallow or Cork and the resulting huge volume of traffic on this road. The road was fine 50 years ago, in particular from Cork to Mallow and Mallow to the Limerick boundary, but it is now past its sell-by date. It is important that the project be expedited. For instance, I travel to Mallow to get a 6.05 a.m. train to Dublin on a Tuesday morning and at 5.30 a.m., the volume of traffic against me is one long line from Blarney to Mallow. I am therefore asking for more definitive dates for when we will go through the planning process. The other issue is that a lot of land is totally locked up now-----”
“That is why we need to ensure we have the required legislation in place that not only prevents these products from coming onto the market, but also the sidelining of regulations and legislation. It is therefore extremely important that we bring in robust and comprehensive legislation that cannot be sidestepped in any way. I agree with my colleague, Deputy Byrne, that we need to urgently bring forward the legislation so that we can bring in the necessary controls and regulations.”
“Basically, this is what the Irish Heart Foundation has set out because it has a lot of experience in dealing with the effects and use of tobacco. We have clear evidence that when people start off with vapes, they tend to go on to tobacco products and then suffer the health consequences as a result. Even with vapes, there is growing evidence that they have adverse effects on people’s health. We need, therefore, to ensure those products are not allowed on the market. The problem we have with the people who produce these products is that they are not worried about the negative effects they may have on people; they are only interested in profit. They will use any mechanism they can to sell the product, and the easiest market to get at is young people.”
“It recommends that any product containing nicotine should first have to be granted approval by the Health Products Regulatory Authority, HRPA, before being placed on the market; future-proof legislation that prohibits the marketing, selling and distribution of disposable vapes and prevents any novel disposable vapes circumventing the rules to enter the market; a complete prohibition of the marketing, selling and distribution of nicotine pouches and any novel nicotine products, nicotine gummies or nicotine strips; a ban on all e-cigarette flavours, bar tobacco, by restricting the permitted flavouring ingredients to a limited few e-liquids with a tobacco flavour, as has been introduced in the Netherlands; an immediate ban on all e-cigarette products advertising through all communication media, including outdoor arenas, billboards, buses, at points of sales and online; the introduction of plain packaging for all e-cigarettes; a ban on the online sale of e-cigarettes and nicotine products; and an increase to the legal age of the sale of e-cigarettes from 18 to 21, as has been done in the USA.”
“It is amazing how the market changes. One issue that is now on the market is high puff count vaping devices. They have exploded onto the Irish market in a short period. They are known as carousel or click-on vape devices, but they are commonly known as “big puff”. While they do not breach existing laws because their tanks contain 2 ml of vape liquid, big puff disposable vapes are in clear breach of the spirit of existing legislation as they have supplementary tanks. It just goes to show how the market responds where there is legislation or regulation and how it is able to sideline that. We should look closely at what the Irish Heart Foundation has set out in its recommendations.”
“If that could be brought forward to an earlier date, it would be extremely beneficial to families as it would allow them to plan. If they had concessionary tickets and for some reason were no longer able to get them, they could plan for it. Now families are finding out at a very late stage and they are having to make alternative plans. It is important we progress the pilot schemes but also make sure the reports are available at an early stage to see how they can be further expanded. We have made a lot of progress over the past number of years. It is important we continue with that, that we continue to make sure our children get to school safely, that we reduce the number of motor vehicles and that we use buses rather than having a huge number of cars arriving outside the school at the one time.”
“I know one family where one of the parents was going through cancer treatment and three of their children who had concessionary seats for the last number of years suddenly lost them. This posed huge challenges for the family. One member of the family was trying to hold down a job while another family member was in healthcare. At times no allowance is made for that. One is going into a lottery system. We need to look at that more carefully. Where a concessionary ticket is granted, we must do everything possible to ensure it is continued because families work around that. They believe it will continue for the number of years the child is going to that school. Another big issue is around the time decisions are made.”
“There are a lot of people in the Glenville area who want to go to Fermoy and people in the Whitechurch area who want to go to Blarney. There are all sorts of challenges in different areas. In fairness, in dealing with those, it is difficult to meet all the needs and the challenges, but I do think every effort is being made to do that. The only way of really dealing with it is to try to increase the level of transport available, and that we work that much harder over the next two to three years to try to make sure we meet the targets we have set. One of the problems is discretionary seats, in particular where families have them for two years and then find in year three, four or five the seat is no longer available.”
“Very much so over the last two years parents there have been looking for school transport because it is a difficult road to travel. There is a large number of cars and it is a difficult area to manoeuvre. I am delighted to hear progress is being made on this. I know the Minister is doing everything possible in dealing with that issue in relation to Rahan. It is a good pilot project to take on. There are huge benefits if it is put into place. Bus Éireann has been working with the school, the board of management and with the Department on bringing Rahan in as a pilot project. In the constituency I serve, we have major challenges at times - for instance, getting bus services in the upper Glanmire area, and to Carrignavar.”
“I thank the Minister of State and the Department for the work they are doing in this area. The numbers availing of school transport have increased to 172,000 this year from 149,000 in 2022-23. The number for people with special educational needs has gone from 18,000 to 21,500. It is not easy to increase services like that because, as a lot of speakers mentioned, there is demand for the vehicles and for the drivers. That is a challenge and how we deal with it into future is something we need to look at very carefully. It is important we acknowledge the work done by the Department, school management, Bus Éireann, the contractors employed, the drivers and the parents who all co-operate in delivering this service. The Minister was talking about the roll-out of the pilot scheme. My colleague, Deputy Eoghan Kenny, referred to Rahan.”
“I want to raise with the Minister my concern that there is no structure in place between local authorities and Uisce Éireann. If an engineer in a local authority wants to make a representation about a connection, he or she is treated in the same way as a member of the public. I ask that the Departments would sit down with Irish Water and the local authorities to set up a proper structure. I know of one housing project belonging to a local authority that is now delayed six months because we cannot get the water and sewerage connections as there is such disagreement between them. A structure must be put in place. I ask that this would be done at the earliest possible date.”
“I have a letter in my hand from Dr. Derville O'Shea, consultant haematologist, in respect of a constituent of mine, Aishling Thornhill, who, unfortunately, has relapsed refractory B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia. It is a complicated condition. My understanding is that treatment would be available to her if she was under 25 but because she is over 25 it is not being made available. I understand some progress was made on it this morning. Could the issue be clarified? Where a consultant prescribes that the treatment would be of benefit to a patient over 25, why is a barrier put in place for them? Could the issue be examined in the overall context?”
“We need to forward-plan for the city centre. There are many buildings that are underutilised but are suitable for either business or residential accommodation. We need to make sure we bring them all back into use and they are fully occupied.”
“If we go back to one of the best long-term plans that was done for Cork city and county, it was a combination of all of those elements together that produced the LUTS plan for Cork, which planned out where we were going over the following 20 years. I served on the Port of Cork for ten years and we were instrumental in making sure the Ringaskiddy development went ahead. Contracts have since been signed for the Ringaskiddy bypass road and work has started on that. There is also the whole process of moving all of the companies located in the Tivoli-docklands area down to Ringaskiddy, thereby opening up a whole area of land to be developed. However, the city centre is important and we should now do the work on that. The Tivoli-docklands area will not be developed until the Ringaskiddy bypass is completed.”
“My concern is that it would be delayed further, given that we are already over 350 days in government. Even if we set up the task force in the morning, it would take 12 months to get the report and further time to set up an implementation mechanism. I am concerned about the timeframe in which this task force will be set up. It is also important that the task force is inclusive. I accept that Cork City Council is playing a very important part in the development and growth of the city in the work it is already doing. For example, flood relief schemes are progressing. This is about making sure we include everyone in the process, for example, the city council, the chamber of commerce, the business community and the community organisations.”
“The project has still not been progressed in the meantime. A task force is essential to make sure that all of these projects move forward. We also need to make sure that it deals not only with the needs of businesses, but also with the social needs of the area as well. We need to sit down and discuss matters. A task force was set up for Dublin. There is now a very good programme. A plan was introduced and there is a programme of action to be taken, which is now up and running. There is a clear timeline for delivery in that area in Dublin. I wish all those involved in the Dublin project well but we also need to do this in Cork. It is the second biggest city, and we need to grow and develop it. That is why we need a task force.”
“Such a task force would not just involve the city council; all of the relevant Government agencies and community groups must also work together to develop and grow the city centre. For instance, I offer the simple example of one project I was working on when I was Minister of State, namely having a day centre for people who are homeless. We have more than 600 people in the city who are homeless and who are in night shelters from 6 p.m. or 7 p.m. The following morning, they are back out on the street. That is manageable when there is fine weather. When the weather is not fine, however, they have nowhere to go. We need that day centre. We have identified a building. It is 13 months since I attended a joint meeting of the city council, the HSE and the Departments of Health and housing.”
“At the ESB site in Wilton, there will be 350 units, 600 units at the Tramore Road site, which previously belonged to CNP, and 217 units at the Sextant bar site. There is development in some areas, but we still have a lot of buildings in the city centre that are vacant and that need to be totally refurbished. In addition, we need to use compulsory purchase orders to move on those properties that have been lying idle for a considerable period. We have to have an overall strategy. For instance, in the area in which my office is located in Blackpool, we have a flood relief scheme that has been going on since 2013. Twelve years on, we still have not turned a sod in the context of dealing with that issue. We need to have an overall plan. The important issue is that we need to put in place a task force to deal with that.”
“As the Minister of State will be aware, the programme for Government sets out quite clearly that a task force will be set up to deal with the challenges that exist in Cork city centre. There is a need for major redevelopment and for an overall plan to deal with those challenges. In real terms, a lot of progress has been made in Cork city but we need to work through how we can grow and develop the city centre into the future. We have already set out proposals in respect of improving the transport system from Ballincollig to Cork University Hospital, Munster Technological University and University College Cork, the city centre, the railway station and on to Mahon. In the past eight weeks alone, over 1,150 social or affordable housing units have been identified for construction in Cork.”
“I thank the Minister. One of the issues I raised concerned Barnardos and the work it is doing. These are two separate programmes, but this is about co-ordination and working together. It is extremely important that this happens. The work the Department is doing means it has now acquired a great deal of expertise. It is the same with Barnardos and what it is doing. It also has a large amount of expertise. It is about pooling it and delivering a comprehensive service in areas and giving support. I must compliment the Department on the amount of work it has done in this area. In real terms, while it is spending €5 million, it is a huge saving in the long term for the State. All these projects really benefit the children and families and the State in the long term in respect of assisting people at a very early age.”
“I thank the Minister and welcome the success of this scheme. I am concerned, however, about whether it will continue. On Monday last, I met with Barnardos in Knocknaheeny in Cork where a programme is based. As the Minister will know, Barnardos' total budget for the year is approximately €15 million. It gets €12 million through Tusla and there is a shortfall of approximately €3 million, which it is challenging. Barnardos does similar projects and explained it is meeting a number of people in relation to supporting children who are going to school and parents. I very much welcome this programme is in place and hope it continues. I ask the Minister to outline what the intentions are in respect of rolling it out to the areas I represent in Cork city. What are the long-term plans for this whole area?”
“I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Moran, for all the work done on flood relief programmes. The problem I have with them is the time it takes from start to finish. One, the Glanmire flood relief project, is being done in my constituency at the moment. It is nearing completion and was very well managed by the OPW. I am concerned about the one in Blackpool, which started in 2013 and, 12 years later, the most recent part has been signed off by the OPW but not by the Department. We have been waiting for more than 12 years. It is really important for that side of Cork city because very little development can take place until it is completed.”
“The Minister spoke of funding for Irish Water. More than 500 treatment plants throughout the country were built between 2002 and 2008. Many of the developers who built them have gone into liquidation or receivership. In one case in Whitechurch in Cork, raw sewage is flying out of the treatment plant into the stream. I have taken samples from it. I have been writing to Cork County Council, Uisce Éireann and the EPA for seven months. I was out there ten days ago and took samples from the stream that are totally contaminated. There are 500 of these plants around the country and we have no timeframe for when Uisce Éireann will take them over.”
“The average public nursing home bed is costing €1,969 per week. A private nursing home is getting on average €1,220. There is a gap of €750. In addition, the private nursing home has to pay commercial rates, which for an average 50-bed unit would be around €60,000 per annum. It also has to pay public liability insurance, which could vary between €60,000 and €100,000 per annum. The private sector has to pay huge additional costs that public nursing homes do not have to pay. They are also dealing with the cost of erecting nursing homes in the private sector. We need to look at all this and make sure that we put in place a plan that can be delivered in a timely manner.”
“Regarding home care, there is the whole issue of long-term planning. For instance, in 2022, there were 28.7 million hours for home care. The prediction is that by 2040, it will be somewhere between 44.9 million and 54.9 million hours. That is a huge change. One of the problems I have at the moment is the total lack of planning for short-stay beds. We are not producing enough of them and it is causing a huge problem in our hospitals. As we speak here tonight, 50% of all people who occupy hospital beds are over 65 years of age. That is why we need immediate action to develop short-stay beds, through either the private sector or the public sector. The other issue that I would be concerned about is the inappropriate comparison between the services provided in private nursing homes and public nursing homes. There is a huge gap in funding.”
“We have seen the recent reports from RTÉ that have highlighted the issues regarding where there is not sufficient support for patients and patients not being treated in a proper manner. All of the evidence is that we will have a growing number of people over 65. As the Minister of State knows, the age profile is changing. In 2011, we had something like 600,000 people over 65. The last figure was 831,000. Within four years, there will be 1 million people over 65. Therefore, the growth in demand for nursing home beds will come at a really fast pace. We also need to make sure that we have step-down beds to get people out of hospital on time. That is a problem. I ask the Minister of State if we have a plan that we intend to put in place and what the timescale is.”
“In fact, if you take the ESRI report, it suggests that we will require a minimum of 21,056 additional nursing home beds over the next 14 years by 2040. That is 1,403 beds per annum over the next 15 years. To do that, we need a plan. I am not convinced that we are looking long term. Likewise, what happened in 2004 is that there was not a long-term plan. It was a case of saying how lucky people were with regard to the supports they had got and whether they were in a public nursing home or a private nursing home. We currently have 32,000 people in nursing home care. We need to have a national framework setting out a guide to integration of people in nursing homes, a guide to the long-term funding, a guide to the regulation and also rights-based planning.”
“In 2004, as a result of a legal challenge – I have mentioned this previously in this House – that a colleague and I took against the Department and the health boards at the time, more than €450 million had to be refunded. This led to the creation of the fair deal scheme. The challenge we now have from the ESRI report is that it clearly sets out the need for a dedicated national nursing home care policy. Short-stay bed requirements are projected to grow from 3,745 beds in 2022 to between 6,420 and 7,265 beds by 2040, which is a growth of between 72% and 94%. Long-stay bed requirements are projected to grow from 29,579 beds in 2022 to between 47,590 and 53,270 beds by 2040, a growth of between 61% and 80%.”
“I thank the Minister of State, Deputy O’Donnell, for coming into the House at this late hour to deal with this issue. I very much appreciate it. As the Minister of State knows, this is an extremely important issue. It is to ask the Department of Health whether it intends to put in place a national nursing home care policy following on from the recent publication of the new ESRI report, which projects that we need to grow the number of both short-term and long-stay beds in nursing homes, and whether the Minister of State will make a statement on the matter. I have been involved behind the scenes in the nursing home sector for the past 20 years.”
“It is interesting the Minister of State mentioned the Glen Resource Centre. I have been involved going back to 1996 when there was nothing at all there. We got funding from Europe to start the centre. There are now 80 organisations using the centre. It is a fantastic development with fantastic staff. All of the organisations there are working hard, providing a good service for the community. Coming back to the issue, as we come into the winter months, people will offend because they have nowhere to go. The whole idea is they will end up in prison for the winter months. There is a problem in our prisons with inadequate accommodation. We should seriously look at how to help these people when they are in prison. We need to get community groups working with them at an early stage when they come back out.”
“The issue in relation to funding is about people living in disadvantaged communities, supporting people with disabilities and people with a criminal record who, as a result, have difficulty finding employment. I am concerned that there is a lack of structure for people discharged from our prisons in accommodation and in trying to get them back into the system. Will more work be done in that area? It needs to be done first when they are physically in prison, with co-ordination of their plan for when they get out. According to the records, on the north side of Cork city in particular, there are people whose only home in real terms is prison. While it is a small number of people, it is important. We need to do more in that area. Are there proposals to deal with that issue?”
“Page 112 of the programme for Government sets out quite clearly the implementation of the Dublin city task force report. It also refers to the need to set up a task force for Cork city. We are now 150 days on and I am wondering when it is proposed to set up this task force. I fully understand that a lot of work is being done by the city council, the business association, the chamber of commerce and UCC but it is about a coordinated approach and working to improve the city centre as well as areas around it like Blackpool on the north side. We also need the northern distributor route. I fully understand the prioritisation of light rail but that is very much servicing the south side. It is about making sure that people have access to the city centre. It is also about growing the city centre and making it attractive.”
“That is one of the problems. They are afraid of applying for any kind of apprenticeship or any kind of job because those skills are required. Will the Minister of State look at that issue as well?”
“I thank the Minister of State for his reply. The work being done by all those people involved in the youth diversion programme is fantastic. They work very hard, also liaising with the Garda. That is what I have found in my experience of working with the local gardaí as regards trying to help people who have dropped out of the education system. One of the problems you find with the youth diversion programme is that one of the reasons people end up in difficulty is as a result of falling out of the education system at a very early stage. Then we try to get them back into any kind of training. For instance, one of the big problems we found with people was difficulty with even literacy and numeracy and making sure there was training available for them. They are afraid of applying for jobs because they have a literacy problem.”
“This was at a time when unemployment was high, but we found that 70% of them had full-time employment whereas the family history would not have been great as regards employment. It just goes to show that where proper supports are put in place it does work. Has there been any review of the programme over recent years?”
“I come from an area where I was involved in a youth project where young people would have dropped out of school. That is where the problems start arising. We worked very closely with the Garda where we had the young people on a training programme. The people we took in were over 15. It is important to note that in a lot of these cases there is no family support. This is what I am saying to the Minister of State about the youth diversion programme. When someone finishes with the programme, that family support may still not be there. I wonder about the checks and balances that are there and about review of the current scheme. For instance, we did a review of the operation. We had 50 young people in training at any one time. We did a review and looked at the people who were with us five years earlier.”
“The population of Dublin is now well over 1.3 million. In 1841, Cork had a population of over 854,000. We are currently at 600,000, but that shows the potential for growing the number of jobs and businesses in Cork. At the same time, we must ensure that we build adequate housing and allow people to travel from their homes to the services they require and their places of work. I welcome the debate and the forward planning that is now in place in the Cork region.”
“It is important that people are able to travel from Charleville and Mallow into Cork city, but also on down to Midleton or Cobh, wherever they may be working. We need to fast-track all of these proposals. The metropolitan plan prepared by Cork City Council, Cork County Council, Irish Rail, the NTA, Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, and Project Ireland shows that everyone is working together to deliver a really good transport infrastructure. That will, as a result, reduce the number of people who have to travel to and from their places of work, or wherever else they are travelling, because they have access to public transport and rail transport, in particular. It is important that the light rail proposed for Cork does not take 15 to 20 years. It is important that we fast-track that project.”
“The company is now running a bus service from the train station in Cork because many of its workers live outside Cork city and use the train service to get to work. Apple runs buses from the train station to those workers' place to employment. We must work with businesses to ensure that more people who are working in the city or in the outskirts of the city can get access not only to the train service but to the follow-up bus service without having to use motor vehicles. My colleague has set out the development in Cork, including the Cork to Mallow rail line and the stations that can be built along the line. That opens up the opportunity for a greater number of housing developments and a higher level of employment in those areas.”
“I thank the Deputy and very much welcome this debate. As my colleague, Deputy Pádraig O'Sullivan, has set out, a major plan, the Cork metropolitan area plan, has been set out and was published on 18 June. Public consultation is currently taking place and it is important that people engage. We are not just planning for the next five or ten years but for the next 50 or 60 years. One of the things that will happen in Cork is a growth of population. The most recent census reported that Cork had a population of 581,000. It is now well over 600,000 and will continue to grow because of the growth of jobs in the area. It is interesting that Apple is going to increase its workforce by over 1,500 people.”
“Regarding forward planning, we need to address the concentration of development in Dublin and the greater Dublin area. We need to focus very much on places like Cork, Limerick and Galway. There is clear evidence that the growth in jobs continues in Cork. Therefore, we must develop the housing in order to accommodate those new jobs. I do not believe we are working hard enough to develop areas outside of Dublin regarding housing and the infrastructure required. In the last census, the population of Cork was 581,000. It is now more than 600,000. In a very short time, if we do it correctly, it will be more than 650,000. The industries are there. They want to stay there and grow but in order for this to happen, more housing is needed.”
“The Department should work further on and encourage the HSE to deal with the issue of delivery primary care centres in a timely manner.”