MAYOR John Moran has vexed a number of Limerick councillors after revealing plans to move forward with his draft mayoral programme despite a vote in the Council chamber last week to put discussions around the plan on the long finger.
Responding by letter to councillors, who voted last week for discussions on his ambitious draft plans to be put on hold by a vote of 21 to 16, Mayor Moran expressed his disappointment in their commitment to helping him to “get the best deal for Limerick in the Budget”.
Trying to bounce back from the brush off, Mayor Moran wrote that he was “very encouraged by the engagement of many councillors with the draft programme, in workshops, in conversation with me — and in the meeting itself until it was adjourned”.
“With their input and that of Pat Daly and his excellent team, and that of many, many other people across the entire county, I will shortly have another great draft incorporating that feedback.”
Mayor Moran still stands above his 105-page mayoral document and plans press ahead with it, pointing out that the Budget is now only weeks away on October 1.
“I’m happy that, even if still marked ‘draft’, it is strong enough to use as a basis for discussions with the government straight away, and that’s what I intend to do,” the letter read.
Acknowledging that “some councillors did not have time to read the draft mayoral programme”, Mayor Moran said that the plan is based mainly upon the manifesto on which he was elected and so reading afresh it is “not as daunting a task as it looks”.
“After earlier circulating the core actions and numerous follow up meetings, I sent out the draft mayoral programme more than a fortnight before the Council meeting, but I acknowledge that some councillors did not have time to read the draft mayoral programme before last Monday’s (August 26) Council meeting to discuss it, as they were on holidays or engaged in other business,” he wrote.
Moran now wants the adjourned Council discussions to resume as soon as possible through series of workshops demanded by councillors at last Monday’s meeting to further scrutinise his mayoral masterplan.
“In the meantime, though, I am inviting the leaders of the parties and groups to meet me as a group early next week. I am asking each to send me in writing their priorities, especially if they differ in any way from the ones above. I welcome all comments, including critical ones — this will make it not weaker but stronger,” the letter read.
He signed off the communication noting that Limerick has a “unique opportunity” with his mayoral role, urging councillors “let’s unite and seize it”.
‘Uncooperative and disrespectful to councillors’
Many councillors were unenamoured with the Mayor’s call to arms, with Social Democrats councillor Elisa O’Donovan, who also ran for the mayoral role in this June’s election, saying that “the Mayor has got continuous feedback and ideas and suggestions from us in the Social Democrats and all of the councillors in June, July, and August on his draft plan”.
She referred to the letter as “a piece of fiction from a Mayor who has, very disappointingly, shown himself to be uncooperative and disrespectful to councillors in the last few weeks”.
Fianna Fáil councillor Catherine Slattery, who proposed that last week’s discussion be deferred until workshops were conducted, claimed councillors have been informed that they will now be held without the mayor present, a move which she says is “not suitable at all”.
Cllr Slattery said Mayor Moran “signed off on the letter ‘unite and seize’, there is nothing united about the mayoral programme”.
“The Mayor also announced that a playground has been signed off on for Southill. While this is great news, councillors in the area found about it through the media. Again, I quote the Mayor, ‘unite and seize’. The only one seizing is the Mayor.”
Labour councillor Conor Sheehan, who voted against adjourning the meeting last week, said he was really disappointed that elected representatives spent two hours refusing to discuss the mayoral programme when they could have gone through it in detail in the same time.
Cllr Sheehan said that he was “generally satisfied” with the Mayor’s plan, saying that “there is a lot in the document that will ultimately benefit Limerick”.
“The fact of the matter is that we have huge challenges with record homelessness, a collapsed private rental market, and a hospital that it is in perpetual crisis, and I welcome the political focus in the mayoral programme to seek to address some of these challenges,” the Labour councillor told the Limerick Post.
“It is incumbent that all Council members get behind the Mayor to ensure that he has the political support in order to deliver for Limerick. I think we all ultimately want what is best for Limerick and what is needed now is a resetting of relations in order to deliver for Limerick.”
