Kieran McCarthy is a City Councillor in the City of Cork, Ireland and is a former Lord Mayor of the City. In January 2015, January 2020 and January 2025 Kieran was appointed by the Irish Minister for the Environment and Local Government for a five year term to be an Irish delegation member on the European Committee of the Regions (CoR). Kieran has been a two term full member and currently is an alternate member. He is a former President of the European Alliance group in the CoR.
Kieran is a regular contributor to the CoR’s Commission for Cohesion Policy and Territorial Development (COTER). Within COTER, Kieran has championed the role and voice of small cities within the EU, the EU Urban Agenda and its partnerships, the sustainable development goals, interregional co-operation programmes and cross-border co-operation, and the dissemination to EU citizens of the work of the EU’s Cohesion Policy.
Kieran has been the CoR’s Rapporteur on the opinion documents, Digitising European Industry, Building a European Data Economy, and the Implementation Assessment of EU Urban Agenda, New European Bauhaus, and Small to Medium Cities and the Just Transition respectively. He is currently the CoR’s Rapporteur on the EU Agenda for Cities.