Irish Examiner view: The wait goes on for Cork Event Centre

It has been six long years since the sod was turned on the site of the centre. It is time to stop kicking the can down the road and finally deliver it

The site of the 'Cork Event Centre,' formerly Beamish & Crawford brewery on South Main Street, Cork. All work stopped on site during the pandemic in 2020. Picture: Larry Cummins

Micheál Martin’s tenure as Taoiseach was a textbook example of someone being forced to sink or swim once elevated to the top job, as crisis after crisis befell a coalition thrown together to form a working government.

The Fianna Fáil leader proved to be a safe political pair of hands in his ability to deal practically and with surety on a variety of matters, from a pandemic to the unseemly spat between the EU and the UK over the Northern Ireland protocol, but there were various issues still unsorted when he handed over power to Leo Varadkar last Saturday.

The cost-of-living crisis is not going away, and neither is the housing calamity besetting so many of our citizens, including some with no roof over their heads at all. We will now see whether Leo Varadkar will have new ideas to tackle these scourges.

But one issue of a more local variety which appears to have been overlooked during Micheál Martin’s time as Taoiseach, was his inability to finally sort out the mess which successive administrations have failed to successfully address — the Cork event centre. 

In one of his final interviews as Taoiseach, Mr Martin told the Irish Examiner it would be “wrong” to give “any commitment” on when construction work will begin, or when the event centre would open.

It has been six long years since the sod was turned on the site of the centre, and continued setbacks — from soaring costs, to funding issues, to redesigns, to planning appeals, and potential High Court challenges — have seemingly dogged every stage of development.

While he was in charge of the Government, Micheál Martin oversaw the investment of another €7m in the project — on top of the €50m already invested from central funds — but there is still no firm timeline as to when the project will be delivered.

This is a vital piece of infrastructure for Cork and the wider environs, and it is time to stop kicking the can down the road and finally deliver it.