Cork Transport

Recent news that funding will not be available for the upgrading of the road between Cork and Ringaskiddy and that they wont release 2.5m for the design of the eastern gateway bridge really shows this Government is not really interested in balanced regional development and basically dont ever really want to fund anything outsite the pale until there is real pressure applied and it basically comes as a last resort. theres always talk of counter balancing Dublin with other regions in the country one of the main ones being Cork but it seems to me that they seem to be over concentrating development and policies in Dublin more than ever. The more recent development of the overhaul of the council and the mayors position in Dublin is testiment to this where they basically want to concentrate the vast majority of high skilled jobs in the Dublin region. I mean not releasing the money for the gateway bridge to kickstart the development of the docklands(how much of a hand was given to the Dublin docklands) or the upgrading of the road to ringaskiddy which together is nothing compared to the billions being spent in Dublin on transport at the moment. The docklands presents a massive opportunity in the times we are in to create a huge amount of jobs during construction and after and the government are basically sticking there fingers up to not just Cork but everyone outside the Dublin region especially when you think of what tax relief and help the Dublin docklands recevied and all this talk of driving the economy back up and driving jobs when this opportunity is staring them in the face and because it is not within an hour of Dublin is just overseen until as i said it becomes a last resort and eventually gets the go ahead when it should be done now. You can picture the article in the paper in 5 years time GATEWAY BRIDGE 20M OVERBUDGET! It should be done now when construction costs are going to be down, typical of this sham government. And regarding the upgrade of the N25, Ringaskiddy and this region is home to thousands of jobs and alot of land for further development of jobs aswell as being next to the most car dependent commuter town in the country, the navy base for the country aswell as too sites that the government are trying to market to pharma industries as they recently closed down but again the government dont see this as enough incentive to fund a short stretch of motorway and stick there fingers up to the south of the country. And one final comment that i know hase nothing to do with this tread but as im ranting and it is just another example of the Government sticking its fingers up to Cork is the closure of the opera house recently as the theatre receives a min sum of funding compared with the likes of the abbey etc in Dublin, not good enough and its about time the Cork politicians started standing up and being counted!