Developments in Cork

@theblimp wrote:

Kite – any chance you could post text of that article since reading of same requires membership

Membership should be free, but here is the text.
I hope the Webmaster won’t mind as it’s a long story in more ways than one.

Sunday Independent April 8th 2007
HUGH Coveney concluded his business chat with publican Denis Quinn – the last man to see him alive – and went for his usual walk with his dogs at Robert’s Cove in Cork.
It was shortly after 11am on Saturday March 14, 1998, six months after the Moriarty tribunal was set up, and just five months after Flood was established. It’s unlikely these matters were on the mind of the 62-year-old former Fine Gael minister as he negotiated the familiar sheer cliff edge he had walked so many times before.
Eight hours later, when her husband had failed to return for a scheduled dinner party with friends, his wife Pauline raised the alarm. Some time later his body was found. His loyal Scottish terrier, Sasha, had remained below the cliff site, where Mr Coveney is believed to have fallen. By torchlight, they had found the dog barking near the base of Robert’s Head.
“She was in a very distressed condition,” it was later reported.
The previous day the gentleman politician had changed his last will and testament – a curiously timed act which, when it was revealed, led to speculation that the politician of a merchant prince family had taken his own life.
If the tribunals were not on his mind, then maybe, it was speculated, his imminent unmasking as the holder of a notorious Ansbacher account might have been. Or was he perhaps still ruminating on his fall from grace just three years earlier?
In 1994 John Bruton, the then Taoiseach, first appointed Coveney to the cabinet as Minister for Defence. A year later hewas politically assassinated by ruthless opportunists, those his former colleague Michael Lowry would now say were “politically motivated”. His demotion to a junior ministry came after allegations of “improper contact” witha businessman.
The suicide rumours had upset his family, but they were reassured when an inquest left little roomfor doubt. The family’s patriarch had died as a result of accidental drowning.
Yet, in Fine Gael, there was then – and still remains – huge resentment that a popular and respected man had, three years earlier, been forced to fall on his sword.
I was at the Bruton family pile in grassy Dunboyne on a balmy Sunday evening when Coveney was obliged to capitulate. Earlier that day it had been reported that, as Defence Minister, he had suggested to the then chairman of Bord Gais that a company of which he was a partner be kept in mind for a State contract.
Owen O’Callaghan, a property developer also of the Cork merchant prince classes – though not quite as blue of blood – was on the board of Bord Gais when the revelation emerged.
Since he was of Fianna Fail stock and a diehard party supporter – financial and otherwise – the finger of suspicion for leaking news of the “improper contact” immediately turned towards him.
He has always denied any part in the skulduggery, but many did not believe his protests -particularly those in Fine Gael, and especially not Michael Lowry, the Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications at the time.
Lowry would later take up a cudgel on his own behalf, certainly, but also, many suspected, on behalf of Coveney, his fallen colleague. He went to war with O’Callaghan, his architect friend Ambrose Kelly and Dermot O’Leary, another Fianna Failer who knows his way around the semi-State circuit and around CIE in particular.
O’Leary was the backroom Fianna Fail man who had organised several fundraising events to which O’Callaghan had contributed huge sums of money. One of O’Callaghan’s companies, Riga Ltd, paid more than €150,000 to the party, or its election candidates, in six years to April 2000.
Most of that was paid in 1994, around the time the then Taoiseach, Albert Reynolds, and the then Finance Minister, Bertie Ahern, had met O’Callaghan’s bankers in Los Angeles when he was proposing a €75m football stadium in Neilstown in west Dublin, not far from the notorious Quarryvale site.
With revenge in mind – though he argued that he was trying to protect taxpayers’ money – Lowry attempted to overturn another deal which had seen O’Callaghan secure a prime CIE site at Horgan’s Quay in Cork.
There was talk of cosy cartels and even of surveillance.
In the twilight world where business meets politics and law, many a knife is sharpened.
The media plays its part, hungry dogs occasionally thrown a titbit when it suits the suits who control the country. (For Lowry, they chose Sam Smyth. For Bertie, the Irish Times is the favoured one.)
In the end Lowry was gutted, “politically naive” he now admits]http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/[/url] & http://www.unison.ie/

Cork Conference Centre:

In 1998 O’Callaghan Properties under bid for 111 acres of land in Mahon was accepted by CCC as the best for the city.
One of the reasons given for not accepting a higher offer was that OCP were to provide an Exhibition / Trade centre for the city or pay the city 6 million euro in lieu.
Nine years on, following a query on the matter from Cllr.Patrica Gosch to the City Manager, the city is to abandon the idea of having a conference centre in Mahon, the city is now to call in the 6 million (a sum that was not index linked) and is to start again from scratch to attract interest in the provision of such a centre.
:rolleyes: Roll on 2017!! 😮

@theblimp wrote:

I’d always been under the impression that the penalty to OCP was not just the money, but they also had to hand back the land in question to CCC !!????!!

I think that the original plan by OCP was for a ‘convention’ centre and that Mary Harney (Minister for Trade at the time) agreed to support it substantially. Plan was that a bunch of Cork-based companies would display in there when other multi-nationals were coming over looking to invest. Sounded a daft idea at the time. Mary thought the same soon after and pulled out. OCP tried to re-jig the thing as an events centre but the site was too tight, too far out of town, and had too many issues concerning traffic management in the immediate area. Furthermore I understand that Clear Channel (now Live Nation – major international venue operators) took one look at the site and headed off pronto

As posted last week, the City Manager, Joe Gavin is now to provide a 12 million euro carrot for a 25% share to any party interested in providing an event centre.
The entire footprint suggested by Mr. Gavin for the centre is two and a half acres. Is this going to be big enough?
Wonder if any foreign developer e.g. from Dublin etc will have a snowballs chance in hell of getting their hands on that loot?:eek:

Mahon would be no good for a convention centre unless the infrastructure was reworked.

Mahon point is a joke at the moment traffic wise, imagine a big fat conference centre loading up the traffic even further.

Docklands is the best place for a big conference centre and UNDERGROUND carpark, with feeder buses to the bus station.

Thats for sure

CCC should have made it very clear by including this location as an objective of the development plan to link a conference centre to the main transport hub in the City.

just wondering does anyone know whats happening with a few stalled developments?

grand parade hotel site
mannix corner
kino cinema
patricks quay
capitol cinema
caragaline town centre and
douglas redevelopment?

@daniel_7 wrote:

just wondering does anyone know whats happening with a few stalled developments?

grand parade hotel site
mannix corner
kino cinema
patricks quay
capitol cinema
caragaline town centre and
douglas redevelopment?

just wondering does anyone know whats happening with a few stalled developments?

grand parade hotel site…..;) should get going now that Frinailla have got the go ahead to “take over” the City Library.

@kite wrote:

Copy: Cork City Manager’s statement on Docklands development 10-4-07

Cork City Council has been in contact with various Government Departments over the past 12 months in order to gather support for the redevelopment of Cork Docklands and to ensure that this major project for the city is on national policy agenda.

I was very pleased with An Taoiseach’s recent announcement of the formation of the Cork Docklands National Steering Forum to assist Cork City Council in its effort to secure the sustainable development of Cork Docklands.

The City Council is at present preparing proposals for appropriate aid which will be submitted to Government under the National Development Plan 2007-2013 and the South and East Regional Operational Plan. The Gateways Innovation Fund is part of the National Development Plan.

There is continuous contact with various Government Departments and details of the Cork Docklands National Steering Forum are expected at an early date.

In the meantime, Cork City Council is proceeding to finalise the South Docks Local Area Plan, which will complete a clear development framework for Docklands and give certainty to all stakeholders. It is anticipated that this plan will be brought to Council in the next month.

Quite and anticipation. Let us see what happens this time.

I reckon Amgen will only do a small scale development now, if any 🙁

Lord Mayor, Cllr. Michael Ahern is to lead a “high power” delegation to San Francisco this week on a fact finding mission. As part of their week long holiday they plan to, wait for it, “visit the Amgen HQ, a world class company who are going to provide 1100 jobs in Cork”.
A visit to Lombard Street is also on the cards, Cllr. Bermingham wants to un-straighten Patrick’s Hill and provide a cable car from Patrick’s Street to the top of Patrick’s Hill.

Remember a past visit to San Fran by the Lord Mayor’s Councillor colleague, Cllr. Berni Murphy?, at least his trip was not a complete waste of time, he went with an empty suitcase for promised funding, he came back with a new set of false teeth.
Wonder if they have a good stock of toupees?
Councillor Murphy’s trip on RTE radio;
http://www.rte.ie/radio1/corkmoments/1056773.html