
THE historic role of directly-elected mayor (DEM) could see Limerick build the foundations for a post-capitalist society that operates not for the international markets but on the needs of people and the planet.
Thatโs according to 32-year-old software engineer Ruairรญ Fahy, who believes that on June 7 next Limerick has a chance for change – a change, he says, that can only be won by people organising from bottom up.
The People Before Profit hopeful, also vying for a council seat for Limerick City North in the upcoming local elections, believes Limerick needs an โactivist mayorโ, who will live on a workersโ wage and be on the side of the people.
And even if the legislation for DEM doesnโt deliver, the role, he points out, will have the biggest mandate in the country for building new systems of local democracy.
โAs weโve said multiple times before, the legislation that they have given us is not really bringing a whole lot. It is more a lobbying position,โ he tells the Limerick Post on a walk along the riverside.
โYouโve got people running for parties that have been in power for the last 100 years, Fianna Fรกil and Fine Gael, that are saying thereโs things they want to get done. If thatโs the case, why were they not pushing it for the last 10 years?
Photo: Brendan Gleeson
โBoth of them have been in power together for the last decade and then 100 years between the two of them together. Weโre trying to change up the system as a whole and weโve got a lot of stuff that can be done within the realms of the legislation itself. But thereโs broader stuff we can do then with communities that you can find ways to leverage existing funds or government funds to try to build up communities.โ
โThereโs no powers ever handed from the top downโ
The Limerick activist hits out that the DEM legislation has delivered little more than shuffling the deck of existing powers and hiding the unelected executive further from accountability.
He would like to see the mayoral office give more power to the people of Limerick to control their future. This role, Mr Fahy suggests, should undo the damage done by being the โdumping ground for dirty industries and an afterthought in a development policy that only focuses on the expansion of Dublinโ.
The PBP canidate says he believes in the role, but โultimately, a lot of those powers are very weakenedโ.
โThereโs a limitation by the government itself where pretty much anything you want to do, if you want to go and change the budget, if you want to go change the medical plan, those are set at a national level. So, you can advocate for whatever you want but things wonโt change without people pushing against it.โ
He hit out that โthereโs no powers ever handed from the top downโ.
โThatโs why I wanted to take a walk over to the Cleeves site today,โ he tells me. โThat was the site of workers standing up for themselves. We had the British stopping us going across the river there to work in the morning, taking hours out of our day to be checked, and then you had a general strike in the city as a result against British occupation. But then as a whole it showed we can run the place ourselves. They showed they could for two weeks.โ
The housing problem
People Before Profit has called for the eviction ban to be brought back, for vulture funds to be outlawed, to serve compulsory purchase orders on long-term vacant properties, and to establish a State building company to work with councils to build thousands of social and affordable homes.
With many of Ruairรญโs own generation, and indeed many of his close friends forced to leave Ireland, it pushed him into an activism role to speak out for young people squeezed further out of home ownership. He deems the current government housing policy a โdisasterโ.
โWe were helping people fight evictions around Covid and from that I got more and more involved in politics. You canโt really tackle the housing crisis without massive change in how we deal with building houses and how we deal with allocation of houses,โ he says.
โI have seen so many people struggle, and when you see your friends having to emigrate, I donโt want to stand by and see this happen again. You have landlords using tenants, breaking laws left, right, and centre around rent pressure zones. How can we allow this to continue?โ
Hitting out at the current establishment, Ruairรญ says that โwe have TDs and members of the council executive who are landlords, and even people who are running for election. We got interest rates going up, you got people with an extra โฌ600 a month coming out of their pocket, and we are lucky at the moment that we havenโt entered into a recession.โ
โLimerick led the way back in 1919โ
Building up a head of steam, he went on to call out the government on its housing policies, saying that โthis government needs to goโ.
โTheir obsession with letting the market solve problems and keeping all developments โoff balance sheetโ has made homes unaffordable for the majority of working families to rent or own while people are waiting over a decade before they finally get offered a home.
โWe have hundreds of empty council houses in Limerick needing more and more work the longer theyโre left idle. These need to be returned to use and the new mayoral budget needs to get the rusty panels off buildings and move families in.โ
The DEM candidate believes that we can have a proper functional society by giving people a safe and secure place to live as opposed to a โneo-liberal modelโ.
โThis view that if we give people a place to live, if they feel safe and secure, theyโre not going to go to work is ridiculous. Most people want to help out, they want to be part of society, they want to do their bit. We need to ensure people are in a position to do that. Thatโs something that the directly-elected mayor has a role in to bring about those changes,โ he says.
โWeโve had 100 years of the same and it is time for some socialist change. Limerick led the way back in 1919 and itโs time for us to do it again in 2024.โ