(Creative Cork is an initiative that gives a 50% reduction in rates to owners of premises in Cork City, who work with the City Council to leave an artist work in the vacant premises itself – full details are here http://kieranmccarthy.ie/?p=800, or please contact the Arts Office in Cork City Hall, 021 4924298 or email arts@corkcity.ie)

Lord Mayor, I think this is a great initiative.

In 2010, I had the fortune of being showed around some of the premises involved in Creative Limerick and at that time it was great to see such creative industries Architecture, Art and Antiques markets, computer and video games, crafts, design, fashion, film and video, music, performing arts, publishing, software, television and radio- harnessing vacant shop fronts.

The artist in our city will have the chance to show their individual creativity, skill and talent to a wider audience. In turn the art has the potential to create wealth and jobs through developing and harnessing intellectual property

Involvement in the initiative allows owners to be associated with the growing creative industry in Ireland.

Ultimately the initiative seeks to enhance vibrancy and active frontages in Cork city centre while promoting the work of the creative industries in our region

I am a firm believer in the creative side of their programme as well that the arts question the way we look at the world; they offer different explanations of that world …that a nation without arts would be a nation that had stopped talking to itself, stopped dreaming, and had lost interest in the past and lacked curiosity about the future.

That the arts link society to its past, a people to its inherited store of ideas, images and words; yet the arts challenge those links in order to find ways of exploring new paths and ventures. That arts are evolutionary and revolutionary; they listen, recall and lead.

All those traits and more can only be great for this city.