What’s ‘cost-neutral’ about offering a prime piece of public property as benefit in kind?

THE spin doctors have been busy again.

In your report on the Cork City Library upgrade at the Grand Parade (August 10), the development was described as “cost-neutral” to Cork City Council — in fact it is anything but.

What has happened in fact is that the developers have been given a section of prime city centre property owned by the City Council/City Library as payment for reconstructing the library at the existing site. How can this be described as “cost-neutral”?

The question arises: why, as a city, did we go down this road? Of course the work on the City Library needs to be done and the proposed reconstruction seems adequate, but why were no monies made available for this work from central government?

Let’s not fool ourselves, the money is there and the public finances have never been healthier. Instead the City Council has entered into a deal of doubtful value. A prime piece of public property is being used as payment-in-kind at a time when the city is crying out for more public space.

Visitors constantly comment on the lack of parks or ‘free’ space in the city.

Yet here we are giving away land to be turned into more pricey apartments and retail units — as if we don’t have enough of these already. The City Council/City Library have claimed they have “no use” for the land that is being traded.

Is this an open admission of a lack of imagination, or was pressure put on the council to do a deal of this sort?

Kevin Doyle

1 Sydney Villas

Sydney Hill

Cork