Opportunity through partnership - Building for the future

Once a peninsula of green fields and country estates, Mahon in Cork has in recent decades developed into a sprawling suburb of mixed residential housing, a rapid transformation which along with other social factors resulted in it becoming an area of high unemployment.

A major commercial development in the area afforded opportunities for training and employment of local people - opportunities seized by a cross-agency partnership made possible by funding provided through the European Social Fund (ESF), the European Union's primary financial instrument for improving employment opportunities.

The Mahon Point Training and Employment Project came about as a result of the construction of Mahon Point Shopping Centre, a major retail and leisure development in the area featuring high-street stores, restaurants, cafes, a 13-screen cinema and additional leisure facilities.