FORMER Limerick senior footballer Colm Ó’Móráin is hoping to hoof it over the bar on June 7 after declaring long into extra-time that he will contest the election for directly-elected mayor as an Independent candidate.
Manager of Fit100 gym at Ballysimon Road in the city, Colm says that, if elected, that he believes that this new role offers a real opportunity to do things across the city and county. According to the DEM hopeful, the sacrifice of certain privacies for the sake of one’s people is an honourable thing to do, and his motto, he has revealed, is “no more fiddling”.
“I believe the goodness in our hearts is our nature and, because our political system is so young; because of our unique passion for our place and connection to our community; we have the capacity to be adaptable and to work through tough times,” Ó’Móráin enthused.
“My end goal is to make government and public debate a simple job by giving everyone live access to all accounts with public money, coupled with live access to any communication related to any transactions in these accounts, so that the connection between paying your tax, public opinion, and government decisions is easy to see, easy to understand, and easy to digest.
“We are not immune to corruption, we are not immune to deceit, we are not immune to making mistakes out of innocence, and for that reason, we require this transparency,” he added.
Colm went onto say that if elected mayor, his intention is to begin this process of transparency, to reconcile public and government relations by giving everyone access to the same information, and to show how the hard-earned money we pay as taxes makes a difference in our community.
“No more fiddling with the people, no more fiddling with our money, no more fiddling in government. Put it all on public ledger; the tech is there, the justification is there, the time is now for government to be turned inside out, and if I become Mayor of Limerick, it will happen,” he said.
Ó’Mórain also takes the view that government should be the equivalent of going to work naked, everything should be as clear as day.
“All doors should be open, all tables glass, everyone should have the humility to admit when they realise a new perspective and forgiveness should be used as a way of teaching,” Colm insists.
“I know the fix to politics, how to stop all the secret handshakes, how to stop repeating the same aul mistakes. It’s easy, and once you see it, you won’t beat it, so let’s do this neatly, we make the public sector public, monitored around the clock on the block,” he concluded.
