CORK has been slighted once again by the Government, according to the Munster MEP, Mr Brian CrowIey (FF). He has protested at the scheduled location in either Dublin or Kerry of the EU Council of Ministers meetings during Ireland's six-month presidency of the EU from July 1st to December 31st this year.
Four of the six informal ministerial meetings planned - finance, environment, social, justice and home affairs - will take place in Dublin Castle while two will be held in Kerry - foreign affairs in Tralee and agriculture in Killarney. The EU summit will be in Dublin in December.
Mr CrowIey says that the draft agenda for the presidency is "a major disappointment for Cork and Munster as a whole."
It represents a lost opportunity "to promote Munster as Ireland's premier tourist region and as a suitable location for inward investment. It is an opportunity for Munster that the Government seems content to ignore."
Mr Crowley points to the record of successful EU summits in such venues as Birmingham, Maastricht and Edinburgh. He says that the decision "reveals the lack of political clout the greater Cork region has in the present Government."
A spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs said that the decision had been taken to limit the number of informal meetings of the Council of Ministers to seven and that there was a desire to make full use of the facilities of Dublin Castle, in which there had been considerable investment.
A considerable number of other EU meetings, apart from ministerial meetings, would also be taking place in Ireland during the presidency, and no final decision had yet been taken on the locations.
The last dime Ireland held the presidency, in 1990 under a Fianna Fail-PD administration, none of the informal meetings was held in Cork. The foreign affairs meeting was in Parknasilla in Kerry.
