CLLR Tom Shortt, this week, called for the resignation of his northside colleague Cllr Michael Hourigan as chairman of the City’s Cultural and Sports committee, alleging he is “incompetent and unable to put down an agenda”.
However, Cllr Hourigan told the Limerick Post he has no intention of standing down.
Cllr Shortt accused the chairman of having displayed negligence after he jetted off a junket to Brussels when he should have been putting together an agenda for a recent meeting.
“In my opinion, he is out of touch with the complex nature of culture in this city, which depicts the predominant macho culture of the city council, and where people almost genuflect when sport in mentioned”.
Cllr Hourigan explained to a council meeting that he had postponed the cultural section of the agenda until a later date in order to accommodate a presentation by Shannon Development on Limerick city’s designation as the City of Sport 2011, and two other sport-related presentations.
Confirming that, as chair of the Cultural and Sports Committee, he accompanied Mayor Maria Byrne and Pat Dowling, the director of services for Community Sport and Recreation to Brussels to receive the City of Sport 2011 designation for Limerick, Cllr Hourigan told the Limerick Post:
“We spent one day in Brussels, and as for the cultural element of the agenda being adjourned, this came about because two councillors had to leave early, which meant we did not have the quorum necessary for the meeting to continue on.
“I have no intention of resigning as chair – it was Cllr Shortt’s own behaviour – he started talking at length about alternative energy, which had nothing to do with the meeting and contributed to having to hold over the cultural items on the agenda .
Voicing his “genuine concern” that important cultural issues for the city are being overlooked in preference for sports, Cllr Shortt said:
“Mr Dowling himself said that there is enormous investment in the cultural area which can be linked into tourism – here at the moment we have a massive refurbishment and upgrading of the Limerick City Gallery of Art going on and a newly refurbished Belltable Arts Centre. There are major issues regarding staffing and these are issues that should have been on the agenda for our attention, but instead we get this macho male culture where people almost genuflect when sport is mentioned. It’s not at all good enough that we won’t get to debate the arts and cultural issues in the city for another four months”.
