Time for Dialogue.....'Ní neart go cur le chéile' ... 'There is no strength without unity'

There is an old Irish saying 'Ní neart go cur le chéile' which roughly translates to English as 'There is no strength without unity'. It is a saying which I have seen in many community centres and community buildings in Cork City and County. It serves as a call for unity in a community and in urging people to get together and make their place a better place. Too often disunity serves as a barrier to development in both small and large communities alike regardless of what help may be available from the outside.
Last Sunday our Senior hurlers bowed out of the All Ireland for 2017 but not without giving us all great hope for the future of hurling in the rebel county. The team management and players came from all parts of our city and county working together for Cork.  Hope is great as it gives us optimism and an expectation of positive outcomes into the future. We all need hope particularly in times of change .
Most people will be aware that there is a great deal of talk about the proposed large scale boundary extension to the city as proposed in the MacKinnon Report. An earlier statutory Smiddy report recommended a unified Council to run the city and county combined. Both reports have had the the effect of polarising opinion in both the city and the county. There are genuine concerns in both the city and the county about the consequences of either option being implemented in full.

In the city people are concerned that their status in a unified Council would be severely diminished. In the county people are very concerned that a large scale boundary will devastate the county council to such an extent that the funding of vital rural services and community services and facilities will be severely curtailed. They are also concerned that the long term interests of satellite towns like Ballincollig and Carrigtwohill would not be best served within an enlarged city. These are genuine concerns that have to be respected and taken into consideration before any final decision is implemented. 

Cork County PPN and Cork City PPN are platforms by which community organisations have an input into policy making on both Cork County and Cork City Councils. The membership is made up of Community and Voluntary Groups, Social Inclusion Groups and Environmental groups. These are the organisations working on the ground who will have to deal with the consequences of any change.

We all work for our communities and have great pride in the places we come from. The current Mayors of the City and County have worked tirelessly for their own communities. County Mayor Declan Hurley in Dunmanway and City Mayor Tony Fitzgerald in Knocknaheeny. I am sure that they would not like to see a solution imposed which would cause division between the city and county. We in the Cork County PPN (Public Participation Network) must emphasise that dialogue and negotiation is urgently needed to come to a consensus as to what is best for both the city and county.

We need strength and unity in Cork, we need dialogue and discussion but most of all we need hope for the future of both city and county.

Denis Kelly

on behalf of 

Cork County PPN (Public Participation Network)