Fianna Fail set to take mayoralty in Cork after renewal of pact

Fianna Fáil's Seán Martin looks set to become the next Lord Mayor of Cork tonight after Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour thrashed out a deal to renew a long-standing pact which has seen the three parties share the mayoralty in Cork for over 20 years.

Fianna Fáil lost one seat in last weekend's local elections to come back with 11 seats and remains the largest single party on the 31-member council, with Fine Gael retaining its eight seats and Labour gaining one seat to return with six representatives.

Labour's gain meant that Fine Gael and Labour could have tried to forge a deal with Chris O'Leary of the Green Party and one other candidate, to give them a slim 16-15 majority over Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin and the other representatives.

Cllr Mick O'Connell (Lab) expressed disappointment at the failure of the party to negotiate an alternative to the deal with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. "We wanted to go into an arrangement with Fine Gael and to encourage the Green Party to become involved and also Máirín Quill (PD).

"I would have preferred to be in a position to offer Cllr Quill the mayoralty of the city, which I think she deserves for her service to the city over the last 25 years, but unfortunately Fine Gael from the very outset decided the only party they wanted to be aligned with was Fianna Fáil.

"We approached Fine Gael with the alternative proposal on the basis that we were responding to the way the people had voted - that they very clearly had voted against Fianna Fáil - but Fine Gael just didn't want to know," he said.

"Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael could have done a deal between themselves - they would have had 19 seats - but Fine Gael wouldn't talk to Fianna Fáil without us being involved and they wouldn't talk to us without Fianna Fáil being involved - the failure to get an alternative arrangement in place rests entirely with Fine Gael," Mr O'Connell said.

A Fine Gael spokesman said Labour was entitled to its view, but declined to comment further other than pointing out that the negotiations had been lengthy.

However, Cllr Martin said he believed that the renewal of the pact was the only viable option to ensure the smooth working of the council.

"An alternative grouping to the pact might get one or two votes through, but you need to have a comfortable majority to run the council - Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour are the only workable option."

Cllr Martin, a brother of the Minister for Health, said one of his priorities would be to get people to start coming back into Cork city centre following the completion of major infrastructural works.

"It's my understanding that people haven't been going into the city centre as much as they used to - for whatever reason.

I will be trying to bring people back into the city for shopping - particularly with the development of shopping facilities on the periphery of the city in Mahon and in Wilton."