Renaming of Cork’s Bishop Lucey Park on hold in absence of regulations, councillors told

By Peter McCarthy, Corkman

A proposal to explore renaming Cork City’s recently reopened Bishop Lucey Park can’t proceed as the necessary regulation to allow a name change doesn’t exist, Cork City Council has told councillors.

In July a majority of the City Council’s elected members supported a motion requiring the local authority’s chief executive to undertake a process to explore the renaming of the park on the city’s Grand Parade.

Reopened last month after a two-year, €7m refurbishment, the park is named after Bishop Con Lucey, who was the Catholic Bishop of Cork from 1952 till 1980. The refurbishment has met a mixed reception with complaints that trees and parks were replaced by concrete and metal.

Now Council officials have told councillors that a legislative process must be followed to rename a named location, with a consultation process with relevant persons and bodies to be followed by a ballot.

However, the regulation enabling the holding of such a ballot is not in place so the officials say the renaming process can’t progress.

Cork City Council’s chief executive is now writing to the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage to seek an update on the status of the regulations.

Cllr Oliver Moran, who along with Cllr Niamh O'Connor and Cllr Ted Tynan put forward the motion calling for a renaming process, told the Irish Independent that the public ballot would be “of people living ‘in’ the place proposed to be renamed.”

"We're in an absurd place where a majority of councillors have agreed to open a consultation on the name of the park, but that consultation is being held up over how to hold a vote of residents of the park. We're not even that far down along the process and, even if we were, it's a park, there are no residents to ballot on a name change,” the Green Party councillor said.

Cllr Niamh O'Connor said consultation should have happened before the park re-opened. "I'm really disappointed in how this matter has progressed. Our motion was for this to happen as part of the redevelopment of the park. The park has now reopened, and a plaque has been erected bearing a name that a majority of city councillors have voted to review at the very least,” the Social Democrat said.

"In my view, this is a two-step process. We first need to decide what name the people of the city want to give the park, whether that be Bishop Lucey Park, the People's Park, or another option. Until we have the answer to that, we don't even know if the regulations will be required. That first step could and should have been progressed before the park was reopened."

Workers’ Party Councillor Ted Tynan called for the power to rename a place to be fully devolved to local authorities. “That would eliminate the necessity for the minister to make any such regulations in respect of the holding of a ballot. Instead, a set of local regulations made by the local authority for the holding of a plebiscite should be put in place,” he said.