County chief leaves city

MAURICE MOLONEY, Cork County Manager, certainly does as he says - his commitment to bringing development to the regions means he’s upping stumps and moving to Mallow himself. He is selling his house in Cahergal Lawn, off the Ballyhooly Road in Cork, through Sheila O’Flynn of Sherry FitzGerald for offers in the region of 254,000 euro.

However, the sale is moving on fast and an offer of that amount is now under consideration, though Sheila O’Flynn expects the price to go higher. And that’s not just because of the connection: “St Andrew’s is a fine, solid, detached house in a mature location, just twenty minutes from town,” says Sheila O’Flynn.

The property has a large and gracious lounge/dining room, a living room with library shelving and an oak-fitted kitchen.

To the rear is a large patio area leading on to mature gardens which offer plenty of privacy.As might be expected with a house that’s been a family home for a long time, its has lots of extras. Most of the bedrooms have built-ins and the master is ensuite.

The location makes it easily accessible to the city centre and the North Link road.

Mr Moloney, from Ballyduff, Co Waterford, worked in City Hall for over 30 years, starting as a clerical officer and rising to the position of acting city manager, before taking up the top job in Limerick.

While he spent just two and half years in that city, the rejuvenation of the docks and the Cornmarket area got underway in his time.

However, the offer of being the manager of the largest county in Ireland was too good to refuse and Maurice Moloney returned to his adoptive county. His wife, Mary, is originally from Mallow, and now that their family are self-sufficient and living away from home, they have decided to return to north Cork.

Mallow, of course, also forms part of the manager’s vision - it lies on a rail line that County Hall sees as a route to sustainable development outside of the greater Cork area. The county and the city authorities are also working together to plan development in the metropolitan Cork area.

This rests heavily on rail - to the east, the Midleton/Youghal line and to the West, the Blarney/Monard line, with main line rail to Mallow and north Cork.

A feasibility study is underway and the re-opening of existing links, according to the manager, would be likely to cost the equivalent of a town bypass. And, while Mr Moloney has built his new home on a site that was sold with planning permission already granted, this doesn’t mean that he’s going soft on his commitment to the controversial green belt policy.

He oversees a planning department that receives more brickbats than kudos because of the stringency of regulations in the zoned areas, but is unrepentant in his assertion that “we don’t want a Dublin here” - an unregulated sprawl into the country.

County Hall has also postponed a decision on an incinerator at Ringaskiddy while awaiting a vote by councillors on a material contravention of the county development plan.This would re-designate the proposed incinerator site from ‘port’ to ‘industrial’ and would allow Indaver’s application to proceed. While public resistance has been huge, Mr Moloney sees the decision ultimately resting with the EPA, if the contravention is carried.