7.4 Importantly, the Socio-Economic Profile highlights the areas of relative affluence and deprivation across the City. This confirms the importance of delivering an employment ecosystem that creates suitable employment opportunities for all residents of the City. 7.5 In addition, the economic profile of Cork illustrates a dependence on high value manufacturing and services. A key objective of the City Development Plan will be to ensure that the city can continue to compete to attract both indigenous and foreign investment while creating a broad range of employment opportunities that suit the needs of all residents in a socially inclusive manner. This will mean that the City Council, along with partners in IDA, Enterprise Ireland, UCC, MTU and business representative organisations will need to continue to collaborate to enhance the skills, research and development needed to ensure that businesses in Cork can innovate and create employment opportunities. This is required to continue to position Cork as a globally competitive business location.
National Planning Framework
7.7 The National Planning Framework (NPF) was published by the Government of Ireland in 2018. This provides a framework for the long-term development of Ireland to 2040, which will be underpinned by investment of a sequence of National Development Plans (NDP). The NPF sets 10 National Strategic Outcomes, including the development of ‘a strong economy supported by enterprise, innovation and skills’ (NPF p13). The NPF highlights that this objective is to be achieved by building regional economic drivers and by supporting opportunities to diversify and strengthen the rural economy, to leverage the potential of places. Delivering this outcome will require the coordination of growth and place making with investment in world class infrastructure, including digital connectivity, and in skills and talent to support economic competitiveness and enterprise growth. Importantly, the NPF reiterates the importance of ensuring that economic growth is achieved in a sustainable manner, with particular attention to climate change. The NPF emphasises the role that cities, including Cork, play in driving regional economic growth, in particular to attract skills and deliver a critical mass to facilitate investment in excellence. Importantly, the NPF highlights that the economic objectives for Ireland cannot be achieved without considering the delivery of housing, health, social services, community facilities along with a range of other cultural and commercial services. The NPF highlights the requirement to grow and diversity Cork’s employment base by creating the conditions to attract and retain talented innovators and entrepreneurs and to be accessible to investors.
Policy Context
7.6 The City Development Plan is being prepared in the context of a global pandemic COVID 19. This has led to a period economic uncertainty as businesses faced operational challenges of adhering to the public health advice, which understandably changed as the nature of and remedy for the virus changed. In addition, the UK, historically, Ireland’s main trading partner, left the European Union (EU) as of 1st January 2021. While the medium to long term impacts of these events are unknown, both in terms of the global or local economies, they highlight the importance of resilience, innovation and agility among all employment sectors, whether public or private sectors. In particular, much of the commentary relates to diversification of markets and accelerated digitisation of business, both of which represent opportunities and risks to Cork’s economy. A range of policies and strategies are being or have been prepared to address these challenges. These are ultimately designed to support the continued growth of Ireland’s economy.
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Cork City Draft Development Plan 2022-2028
Volume 1 I Chapter 7
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