Cork City Council destroyed the €150,000.00 Tourist Train project investment and thereafter kept me out of employment for the past 4 years. This is unfair.

20/02/20 I am revising my petition because I have been unfairly kept out of employment for the past 4 years which is unacceptable. I should be provided with a commercially viable operating position in the city center that is customer facing and thus in the tourist catchment. But because of a gesture to favoritism towards the Open Top Bus Operator the City Council only provide me with a remote back street operating position where there are no customers. That provides all the available business for the benefit of the Open Top Bus Operator as he is permissioned to operate from the center of the tourist catchment. The Open Top Bus Operator is provided with a commercially viable operating licence whereas I am provided with a commercially non viable licence on a remote of customer back street. I have been actively trying to have this unfairness resolved for the past 4 years but I am meeting continued resistance.  Please support my effort for change.

Petition Release dated 26/09/19.   Please complain to help end favoritism in Operational Licensing for tourism activities by Cork City Council.  In doing so you will be helping the cities visitors and tourists at the same time.   A Local Government ruse has unfairly acted in a favoritism gesture to the commercial benefit of the Open Top Buses and destroyed the value in the Cork City Tourism Train Project. It is now a requirement further to that unfair effort in favour of the Open Top Buses that all of the €150,000.00 as employed on the Tourism Train project be written off. Some two thirds of that money was from Public sources but as the City Council have not (will not) provisioned the Tourism Train with a pick up/set down to make the business commercially viable all of the investment money thus employed can now be considered wasted. Who said favoritism has no cost, but then maybe Local Government can think differently as it is not their money?

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The Issue: Cork City Tourism Train was invested in to provide for an additional Tourism activity on the streets of Cork City. It received the support of Cork City Council, the Cork City Local Enterprise Office and the Cork City Partnership and many other State Agencies. However the current City Council management will only provide the Train with commercially non-viable operating pick up/set down positions that are remotely located and thus far away from the tourist catchment where the trains targeted customers can be found. The Operational Licence that this then provides for the train is thus valueless and useless.  By providing a valueless and useless licence facilitates them in destroying the Tourist Train Business and the value of the public monies invested.  In doing this they seek to provide all of the available business to the Open Top Bus Operator. There is an unfair favoritism at work here and this commenced when the current External Affairs management and their Tourism Committee assumed responsibility for the project at the beginning of 2106. They replaced the previous team that I had been working with up until then.

The Favoritism: The unfair favoritism means the Tourist Train launch has been and is meeting resistance to fair trading from the combined group of forces consisting of the Open Top Bus Operator as enabled by Cork City Council and facilitated by the NTA  with the issue of an unfair commercially advantageous Operational Licence for the benefit of the Open Top Bus Operator. This is in effect creating a situation of Economic Injustice for the Tourist Train business and my efforts to earn a living from the enterprise. This economic Injustice has to be ended with fair licensing. The Tourist Train does not provide the same service as the Open Top Buses.

The Unfairness: This unfairness needs to be rectified with a Fair Licensing procedure as currently the system, as it is being applied in a favoritism fashion is positioning the Tourist Train on remote back streets for the benefit of the Open Top Bus Operator. The remote positioning of the train pick up set down provides for all of the available visitor business being funneled to the Open Top Bus Operator. It brings the National Transport Authority Licensing System into disrepute and action needs to be taken by the City Authorities and the NTA to rectify same as their favoritism approach to fair implementation is currently making it unfit for purpose. Cork City Council is working the licensing system to exclude some for the benefit of others, rather than working it in a fair inclusive fashion for the benefit of all.

Signatory:  The City Councils, Director of Corporate and External Affairs who signed the Tourist Train Contract demonstrates no interest in its fair implementation and furthermore would not answer our legitimate questions or have our concerns and issues about the remote working requirement properly addressed by his office or in the Council Chamber. He signed that we would be working from the center but he refuses to honor that basic contract and business requirement. His insistence on providing for remote working would only serve to burst the business and put his Council in a contractual position to relieve us of the train. This is an unfair approach for Cork City Council to be taking with a new business start up.

Fake News:  In November 2015 Cork City Council approved the Tourist Train Project and we prepared the train for its street trials in the City for early January 2016. Following the approval in the chamber a number of news stories had been published in the local papers giving indication that the new tourist train would be stopping at a good number of the local tourist visitor attractions in the City. This was however incorrect information to publish as the train was only ever going to have one single pick up/set down to facilitate a circular tourist train experience in the city. This kind of indicates that somebody in the Council may not have properly explained the proposed service restrictions as were applicable to the train and thus released information to the press which was inaccurate and thus a bit fake. Thereafter the fake news ruled and the Council told us that they would not be affording us further assistance as they were not going to upset the Open Top Bus Operator with our presence in the central tourism catchment. Consequently they did not facilitate the scheduled street trials and the launch of the Tourist Train experience as had been planned for May 2016. The people we had been engaging with on the project up to that point were replaced by a different team and thereafter all they would provide for were pick up/set downs at remote locations in the city where no tourists existed and this was very unfair. It did not seem to matter to them that any visitors or tourists were available at the remote locations and this no longer reflected the detail in the business plan.

Not to forget...... the nod given to the Open Top Bus Operator back in 2016 to convert 2 no London Buses for open top work in the city with vehicles that London Transport had to get rid of because of their high emissions. This facilitated the Open Top Bus Operator in leap frogging the tourist train. Not to forget the unfair retrospective phantom policy that was put in place in the LEO to facilitate our unfair back streeting and the channeling of all the available tourism and visitor business revenues towards and for the benefit of the Open Top Bus Operator. However what was done unfairly then was done and the people of Cork City have had to breath what the Londoners of 2015 were not accepting back then. Not only have the locals to breath the outpourings of the Londoners unwantable emissions ever since but their Council in the time of Mayor Des Cahill's award programme provided shelf crystals as a reward to the Open Top Bus Operator for their spectacular contribution to local tourism that they describe as ambassadorial....... which has since apparently afforded the Open Top Bus Operator boasting rights. And just to cap it off they were provided with an unfair catch all licence of economic perfection at a time when we were supposed to be launching the tourist train.....well done Cllr Cahill for your time well spent in providing for fair play for all.......... and us not even providing the same type of service. On the emissions question that you oversighted you possibly further expect that the country should pay the fines for not reaching the targets set for the reduction of green house gas emissions?

My Request:  I am a Independent Business Start Up that planned to trade under the name "Street Train Services" and I set up as part of a Back to Work Scheme in 2015.  The situation I describe above is ongoing, unfair and unjust and has kept me out of employment for the past 4 years. I should be pleased if you would consider lending your signature to the support of this change effort that would enable me to secure a proper commercially viable pick up/set down position and licence that would further enable the tourist train to trade competitively and sustainably, and thus be able to be gainfully self employed. Thanks for your attention and hopefully your signature in support of the change.