Jim Quinlan (Lab) elected Mayor Of Cobh

Newly elected Lord Mayor of Cobh Jim Quinlan (Lab) with wife Grace

It is with great honour and privilege that I accept this office. As a person who was born and raised in Cobh (being among the last of the children to be born in our own Cobh Hospital) and who now teaches in Cobh, I am very humbled by the faith and trust that has been shown in me today, to be elected as Mayor of my home town.

I would like to congratulate and thank Cllr. O’Driscoll for the excellent job he has done over the last year and I hope to continue the spirit of co-operation and unity that epitomised his tenure and if I can carry out my Mayoralty with half the dignity and sincerity of his I will have done well. Finbarr, I hope you won’t mind the occasional phone-call looking for advice over the coming year.

I spoke in Irish about my pride in being a Cobhite, a fact to which any of my colleagues, friends and family who are not from Cobh will testify. And I do believe that as a community we do have a great deal of pride in our town and indeed a great deal to be proud of. However there are times when the positive aspects of our town are allowed to be outweighed by negative stories or negative publicity. We must accentuate the positive! For instance when a learned Professor decides to comment on our town, having not done his homework, or a broadcaster opens the floodgates of sensationalism, it is important that we (a) maintain perspective, and (b) do not contribute to the kind of publicity that can be damaging to our town. I am not suggesting that we ignore or cover-up the negatives but let’s not see them where they don’t exist.

I think that sometimes it is refreshing to look at our town through fresh eyes. To stand back and look at what our town has to offer as if you were a first time visitor. No matter how hard we try we all occasionally take what we have for granted. As you come along the High Road, for example, and the town and harbour come into view, the first view that many visitors will have of our town, just stop for a moment, look and realise that there are very few more beautiful introductions to any town anywhere! And that is only one of hundreds of such views in our town.

When I was in Waterford recently doing a tourism promotion on behalf of Cobh Tourism we had a pull up display with various images of Cobh including one of The Independence of the Seas tied up in the deep water quay, images of the harbour, the promenade, the Cathedral and one of some animals in Fota Wildlife Park. I noticed a lady taking great interest in the images on the display and it became apparent to me that she assumed we were working for a cruise line company when she asked me “Are these pictures of all the places the liners stop at?” To which I replied “No, they are all pictures of Cobh.” She then responded with a look of scepticism, “Is Cobh really that beautiful?” When she left I stood back and looked at the display myself having not really taken much notice of it to that point and thought to myself “Yes, it really is that beautiful!”

We are living in difficult economic times yet there is so much positive to accentuate in our town and so much to be optimistic about. Relatively speaking Cobh is surviving these austere times well. Regular live register updates show unemployment figures in Cobh considerably lower than almost any other town in the county and we have a wealth of facilities for young and old alike that would be the envy of so many communities.

There are an incredible number of voluntary groups and organisations in our town that provide a myriad of services to the residents of Cobh. But I would like to single out one of those for special mention today. Over the past few years and especially over the past number of weeks and months, Cobh Tidy Town’s volunteers have been doing fantastic work and I have to say I don’t remember the town ever looking so well. Cobh Tidy Towns stated last year the ambition of winning the Tidy Towns Competition in 2012 and some may have said that this was naively ambitious. However, looking at the work that has, and is, being carried out; it is an ambition that is becoming more and more achievable. In the coming year I will offer as much support as I can to this, and all local voluntary organisations, as without such groups our town would be a much lesser place.

Our tourism product offering is also defying the gloomy national picture with a continued annual increase in visiting liner numbers and with Cobh winning two awards at this year’s annual cruise line awards in Miami in the “Best Destination Welcome” and “Best Destination Experience” categories. I would also commend the Cobh and Harbour Chamber Summer Swing season and the welcome addition of the jarveys and the tourist train. All of which, and much more besides, should be a source of pride and positivity.

Of course the highlight of the coming year will be the Titanic 100 commemorations. Plans for these commemorations are now underway and we can promise the people of Cobh a programme of events of a poignant and respectful nature that they will be proud of. Cobh’s unique link with the Titanic story is a link that should and will be marked in an appropriate way but while the tragedy of Titanic is a sorrowful and sombre one it is also a story of achievement and hope. The achievement of those who designed and built a monument of such spectacle and grandeur, and the hope that Titanic and her sister ships represented for those Irish people who decided to follow their dreams of a better life in America and elsewhere. When we remember this era of our history it can also give us hope for today that we have, in the past, come through times of even greater austerity than those with which we are faced today.

I would like, therefore, to take this opportunity to appeal to every member of our community to take every opportunity to accentuate the many positive aspects of our town and to keep the negatives, of which there will always some, appropriately in perspective.

Accentuating the positive must also be something that Cobh Town Council engages in with regards to the work of the council itself. Our town council is often a victim of publicity which can sometimes be unnecessarily and unfairly negative. It is inevitable that issues that create division and controversy will attract most attention. In any grouping such as Cobh Town Council there will always be a certain amount of disagreement and debate but my experience of this council over the past two years has been one where debate and disagreements have always been conducted in a respectful manner and always with the best interests of our town at heart. I would also have to say that the vast majority of business conducted in this chamber is conducted in a unanimous manner with councillors of a common mind about what is best for Cobh. This is somewhat at odds with the perception that sometimes exists within our community and for that reason I would appeal to my fellow councillors and to those who report on council activities to do our utmost to accentuate the positive developments that are so regularly made. I pledge, with the support and co-operation of the Town Clerk and the Council staff, to endeavour to maintain a steady flow of “good news stories” regarding progress within the council throughout the coming twelve months.

It also bears mentioning that over the past two years Cobh Town Council has had to endure a cut in government funding of a quarter of a million euro, this coupled with an embargo on recruitment has made it increasingly more difficult to carry out the day to day obligations of the council. For these reasons I would like to commend the indoor and outdoor staff of the council for their continued hard work and dedication.

Finally, even though the prospect of being Mayor of Cobh for the coming year is a somewhat overwhelming one, it is also one of great pride and excitement. I will endeavour to represent this council and the people of Cobh to the best of my ability and I hope to repay the faith and trust of those who have elected me as Mayor here today and indeed those who elected me to this council two years ago.

Go raibh míle maith agaibh go léir.