A FORMER executive architect with Limerick City and County Council in a previous life, the newly-elected councillor Maria Donoghue is currently getting accustomed to how the other half live down in Merchant’s Quay, writes Limerick Post political reporter Alan Jacques.
There’s no more top table in the Council chamber for Donoghue these days, as she joins the ranks of 40 councillors over on the cheap seats after being elected as an Independent in Limerick City West in June.
When I visited Cllr Donoghue at her home on Wolfe Tone Street, she made it clear that she has no interest in hanging any of her former colleagues out to dry. If anything, she says, she understands the limitations and constraints the local authority faces on a daily basis, and now wants to help make their jobs easier.
An architect by trade, working in private practice with her husband James Corbett on O’Connell Street, Maria, a no-nonsense kind of gal, brings a wealth of knowledge and experience in city design and regeneration with her to the Council chamber.
“There are plenty of politicians across the county and the city who I think make a career out of pointing out the flaws,” she insists. “I have no interest in doing that to people.”
“I understand their limitations, their constraints. I’ve often been frustrated, particularly by people’s perception of Council staff, that they’re lazy or that they don’t care. And actually they do, of course they care.”
Mara recalls days in her previous Council purview when she “used to get into quite public arguments on Facebook, maybe even with some of your own media colleagues”.
“I did that because I know how hard people work. But I think it comes from the top down, what people can and cannot do, and those opportunities that are maybe not being taken as fully as they can be.
“I have no interest fighting with people or pointing out flaws. I really want to work with people and make their jobs easier. I’m quite happy to take public blows for them as well.”
Cllr Donoghue believes she can provide strong leadership and a clear voice for change as an Independent by rising above political debate and focusing on what she describes as the fundamental problems of decline and mismanagement.
With her experience at senior level as an architect for the local authority, and as a senior executive officer in charge of a “couple of departments”, she maintains she has a good understanding of how the Council can be managed and resourced more effectively.
‘We delivered the housing, they just sanctioned it’
Maria looks at the work carried out on Nicholas Street in Limerick City to breathe new life back into the historic quarter as one of her proudest achievements during her seven years in City Hall.
“People think that architects deal with buildings, but actually, I think the most important skill of an architect is communication, whether through drawings or liaising with communities,” she says.
“So I consider the Nicholas Street project as a big win for me at that time, because there was a lot of working with people.
She also pins the development of housing on Shannonside as a major career accomplishment.
“I think then when I was working in Design and Delivery, I ran that department with Joe Delaney (the Council’s current Director of Regeneration, Sports, and Recreation), I think we got that into a very good department. It was shipshape. Everyone knew their role and we delivered a lot of housing projects,” she tells me.
“The councillors and directly-elected mayor candidates claimed they delivered housing. Sorry lads, it was Design and Delivery, we delivered the housing, they just sanctioned it.”
Involved with various local clubs and committees in Limerick City West, including Ballinacurra Gaels, the hard-working mother of two has vowed since her election campaign to work to increase the vibrancy of the city centre.
Fighting the decline of the city centre
Cllr Donoghue says she recognises the challenges that must be addressed to stop the decline of the city centre and wants to tackle in particular dereliction and vacancy.
This task, she points out, can be achieved by encouraging people to return and live in the city centre and by increasing footfall for local businesses and improving the retail experience.
It was that wanting to be part of positive change for Limerick that pushed the Galway native into running for local government in the first place.
“The thought started about 18 months ago,” she muses. “I could see the changes that were needed here on our street, and I could see it echoed across other streets in the city.”
She says that she was “being fobbed off by our local representatives who I’d spoken to, and by members of the Council. I felt that they weren’t taking us seriously, whereas if I lived, say, in an estate in Raheen, I might be taken more seriously.”
“I think there’s a kind of view of the city centre communities that we put up with things.
“I didn’t feel we had a clear voice and the closer it got to election time, I realised we need that voice, and I know what can and cannot be achieved.”
Cllr Donoghue insists she’s in a “unique position”.
“I’m informed and I know what they (councillors) should have been doing for us, and they didn’t. I don’t believe the wishy-washy responses and that infuriated me and it sparked the thought — “maybe I’ll be that voice?”
‘As simple as that’
Hugely passionate about her adopted home, Maria wants to see Limerick City vibrant, lived in, and reaching its full potential.
“I wasn’t alone in how I felt,” she says, referring to her neighbours who spurred her politican ambitions on.
“And Wolfe Tone Street isn’t unique in what we’re experiencing. We’ve development plans that are endorsing living in the city centre and I’ve always worked to try and promote Limerick for culture or for the quality of life.
“Limerick’s best asset is its people. The people here are brilliant, they’re so warm and welcoming, and I’ve always wanted to endorse that. I felt if the Council executive isn’t listening to its people who are making the city vibrant, and if they are taking our being here for granted, then Limerick is losing its best asset, its people.”
“We’re living here and we need more of us living here so that vibrancy is a natural offshoot of people being here. It doesn’t have to be beautiful. It doesn’t have to have all these large strategic projects. It just needs to be accessible for living and take the traffic off the streets, that’s all it is. It is as simple as that.”
