About Des

I was first elected to Cork City Council in June 2009.

As a parent and business owner at the time I had a clear belief in what I wanted to achieve as an elected Councillor for the Southeast ward of City Council. Better amenities for my area of Blackrock, Ballintemple, Mahon, Ballinlough and city end of Douglas. My other ambition was for a more vibrant city centre. As a candidate for the fourth time in 2024 these original ambitions remain. One significant ambition was soon made very clear to me namely, to assist any resident in any way that I can either with a local or national issue. There is little doubt that there is a great sense of pride when I see projects that I have been central to materialize such as, Blackrock Village, Marina Park, Tramore Valley Park, Improvements to the Gus Healy pool, Salom park, Kennedy Park, Ballinsheen Bridge, and others. However, it is the individual private cases involving housing, repairs, grants, visa’s and others that make me realize the positive impact that I have with my neighbours. What I have learned over the last almost 14 years as a councillor will enable me to better serve the area over the next 6 years if I am re-elected in 2024. Many projects take time to realize, for example the first public meeting regarding the upgrade of Blackrock Village was in 2009 and I had the pleasure of officially opening the new plaza in 2017 as Lord Mayor.

2019 was a significant year for Cork City as the City officially expanded to include, Rochestown, Donnybrook, Frankfield, Grange, Leghenamore, Ballincollig, Blarney and Glanmire.

Rochestown and Donnybrook became part of the Southeast Area while part of the Douglas city end was transferred to the South-Central Local Area. The SE Local area doubled in size and was reduced from 10 councillors to 6. It quickly became apparent that the county council had done the minimalist maintenance of the transferred area over the previous 5 years. The city now has to pay in excess of 10 million euro to the county for 10 years by way of compensation. No decision to cease payments in 2029 has been agreed and may well continue to drain resources from the city for many years thereafter. The government need to absolutely ensure that the compensation agreement ends in 2029. The compensation was set up to reflect lost income to the county. The last 5 budgets have demonstrated that the calculated and agreed figure is grossly over estimated, by at least 2 and a half million. Similarly, the maintenance of the transferred area was far more costly than predicted. Regrettably nationally funded and approved projects in the new area were not pursued by the county council (Donnybrook hill , Clarkes Hill improvement scheme and others ) will now cost more than originally provided for.

There are many projects across the south east local area and indeed city wide in the pre-planning and planning stages which I wish to see through to completion. I will outline these in the localised/ map section of the web site. If there are issues/projects that you would like more information or just to comment on please use the contact details on the site.