Summit of the Cities: Belfast and Dublin Forge All-Island Urban Investment Alliance to Tackle Shared Challenges
The inaugural Summit of the Cities has concluded with a landmark commitment to establish a permanent Secretariat of the Cities, jointly hosted by Belfast City Council and Dublin City Council, to coordinate all-island urban investment and address the shared economic challenges of housing, transport, and regeneration. The summit, backed by the Shared Island Fund and attended by civic leaders from all 12 cities on the island of Ireland, marks a significant new chapter in cross-border civic and economic cooperation that goes beyond the traditional governmental channels.
Background
The economic case for all-island urban cooperation has been building for several years, driven by the recognition that the cities of Ireland — Belfast, Dublin, Cork, Galway, Derry, Limerick, Waterford, and the smaller urban centres — face remarkably similar economic challenges that would benefit from coordinated responses. Housing affordability, public transport investment, city centre regeneration, and the attraction of foreign direct investment are all areas where the cities of Ireland are, in effect, competing with each other for resources and talent, when a more cooperative approach might produce better outcomes for all.
The Shared Island Fund, established by the Irish government in 2020 with an initial allocation of €500 million subsequently increased to over €1 billion, has been a significant driver of cross-border economic cooperation. The fund has supported a range of infrastructure and development projects across the island, including road improvements, greenway development, and cultural initiatives. The Summit of the Cities represents a new phase in the fund's work, moving from project-by-project support to the development of a more structured framework for all-island urban cooperation.
The economic complementarity between Belfast and Dublin is particularly significant. The two cities, separated by just over 160 kilometres, are the island's two largest urban economies and between them account for the majority of Ireland's economic output, employment, and innovation activity. The development of a more integrated economic relationship between the two cities — facilitated by improved transport links, coordinated investment strategies, and shared approaches to talent attraction — has the potential to generate significant economic benefits for both.
Key Developments
The summit's most significant outcome was the agreement to establish a permanent Secretariat of the Cities, which will be jointly hosted by Belfast City Council and Dublin City Council and will be funded by a combination of the Shared Island Fund, the UK's Levelling Up fund, and contributions from the participating city councils. The Secretariat will coordinate follow-up work on the four key themes identified during the summit — housing, transport, regeneration, and governance — and will prepare the ground for the second summit, planned for Cork in 2027.
The summit also produced a series of specific commitments from participating cities. Belfast City Council committed to developing a new cross-border housing data-sharing platform that will allow planners in both jurisdictions to better understand the dynamics of the all-island housing market. Dublin City Council committed to sharing its experience of large-scale social housing delivery with other cities on the island. Galway City Council announced a new partnership with Derry City and Strabane District Council to develop a joint approach to attracting technology investment to the west of Ireland.
Former New York City mayor Bill de Blasio, who delivered the summit's keynote address, called for the cities of Ireland to be "bold and ambitious" in their approach to urban investment, arguing that the scale of the challenges they face — particularly in housing — requires a level of political will and financial commitment that has not always been evident in the past.
Why It Matters
The establishment of the Secretariat of the Cities matters because it creates a permanent institutional framework for all-island urban cooperation that does not depend on the goodwill of individual politicians or the availability of specific funding streams. By embedding the cooperation in a formal institutional structure, the summit's participants have created a mechanism that can survive changes in government, shifts in political priorities, and the inevitable fluctuations in the availability of public funding. The economic case for all-island urban cooperation is compelling: the cities of Ireland are, collectively, one of the most dynamic urban economies in Europe, and the development of a more integrated approach to investment, planning, and talent attraction has the potential to generate significant economic benefits for the entire island. The summit's focus on practical, deliverable outcomes — rather than on the constitutional questions that so often dominate the all-island political agenda — is also significant, demonstrating that meaningful cross-border cooperation is possible even in the absence of political consensus on the constitutional future of the island.
Local Impact
For Belfast, the summit's outcomes have immediate practical implications. The city's participation in the Secretariat of the Cities will give it a formal voice in the development of all-island urban policy and will provide access to a network of expertise and experience from cities across the island. The cross-border housing data-sharing platform, which Belfast City Council has committed to developing, will provide planners with better information about the dynamics of the housing market in the greater Belfast area, including the significant cross-border commuter flows between Belfast and the border counties of the Republic. For Dublin, the summit has provided an opportunity to share its experience of large-scale urban development with other cities on the island, and to develop new partnerships that could support the city's continued growth and development.
What's Next
The Secretariat of the Cities will be formally established in September 2026, with a joint launch event in Belfast and Dublin. The Secretariat's first task will be to develop a work programme for the period to the second summit in Cork in 2027, focusing on the four key themes identified at the Belfast summit. The Shared Island Fund has indicated that it will consider applications for funding from city-level cross-border cooperation projects that emerge from the summit's working groups, with a first call for applications expected in October. The second Summit of the Cities is planned for Cork in spring 2027.
