FINE Gael councillor Daniel Butler has welcomed the announcement of a dedicated response team to assist with addressing maintenance issues in Limerick’s city centre.
The response team, Cllr Butler told the Limerick Post, has been established to assist with the upkeep of public realm areas in need of immediate attention such as pavements, street furniture, planters, and cleansing.
“This fund allocation of €400,000 will help us ensure that aesthetically we put our best foot forward in terms of the public realm,” Cllr Butler opined.
Cllr Butler also commented on the recent appointment of Ashlene Reyburn as Limerick’s new Night Time Economy Advisor at the local authority, who will be engaging with city traders in the coming weeks.
“We really need to see better engagement with city centre traders and those living in the city centre to allow us work together to deliver change that is informed by their expertise,” Cllr Butler said.
“We all have a part to play here and other agencies, such as An Garda Síochána, homeless services, and drug services have a part to play in bringing their expertise.”
Cllr Butler also takes the view that the council needs to be the organisation to coordinate this.
“All this is happening in the context of rising costs for small businesses so we must act urgently,” he said.
“I have managed retail outlets in the city centre and I have a sense of some of the challenges in practical terms, for example hiring security staff for many businesses is just not viable so making them vulnerable or even forcing them to close.
“We need to been far more vocal on this but also contextualise it in that this is an issue for city centres globally and retail suffering due to the move online by customers.”
