News of project takes the biscuit

PROJECT announcements by ministers have a habit of being repeated, but the confirmation that the Cork School of Music will proceed takes the biscuit in terms of déja vu moments.

The timing of this announcement of the €60 million development by Education Minister Noel Dempsey will inevitably be linked to the forthcoming local elections.

Not alone were candidates threatening to run on this single-issue platform, but the negative vibes from the previous broken promise was doing Fianna Fáil no favours at all meaning the matter needed to be sorted by June 11.

Fianna Fáil is in election mode and this announcement can be added to the pot, with the one-off housing guidelines, decentralisation, the citizenship referendum and others, as part of a winning campaign formula.

Nevertheless, it will be a relief to the staff, students and supporters of the Cork School of Music that its future has been confirmed.

Equally, Health Minister Micheál Martin was a relieved man as the project got the official go-ahead, as he self-deprecatingly confessed yesterday.

The minister recalled only too well the occasion in October 1999, in the auditorium of the old School of Music, when he announced the original £10 million extension to the school in his then capacity as Education Minister.

Mr Martin used an anecdote from that memorable day in an effort to illustrate the gravity of the situation to his Cabinet colleagues.

"There was an elderly gentleman who stood up at the end and said: 'I remember being here back in 1979 and Minister John Wilson made an announcement like this. And it's now 1999.' I always recall a shiver going up my spine when he made this statement. I'm glad that shiver has receded now," Mr Martin said.

The subsequent excuses about the delays in the project bordered on the farcical as the scapegoating of the European Commission fooled few of those concerned and left Mr Martin with a tricky conundrum.

Delivery on the School of Music was viewed locally as a real test of the mettle at the Cabinet table for the Minister for Cork, especially as Fianna Fáil has won and held six of the 10 Dáil seats in the Cork city constituencies in the 1997 and 2002 general elections.

Questions were being raised about just what influence this level of representation actually generated in Government circles.

Forgetting about the €125 million worth of developments at Cork University Hospital and other local projects he has bankrolled as Minister for Health, the delays in the School of Music project was a lingering embarrassment.

The significance of Mr Martin's presence at the announcement was more than just a publicity generating jaunt. This project has been inextricably linked to his ministerial career and, in fairness, he remained committed to finding a solution.

There had better be real delivery this time or a certain portion of the electorate of Cork may have run out of patience by the time of the 2007 general elections. It wouldn't look too clever for a would-be Taoiseach if his party lost any seats in his home town.