MAYOR John Moran was asked by Cllr Sarah Kiely if his €100k over three years offer to the International Rugby Experience could be offered to the Limerick Enterprise Development Partnership (LEDP) to help save the Markets Field.
The Fine Gael woman put the question on the table, she said, given that the Garryowen football stadium had been offered as a gift to Limerick City and County Council.
Replying to Cllr Kiely at November’s full meeting of the local authority, Mayor Moran explained that monies from his mayoral fund are only to be used to progress items in his mayoral programme.
He told Cllr Kiely that she would “be aware that my original gesture was made to cover the shortfall of €100,000 for three years in the operating costs of the International Rugby Experience”.
“This was to supplement the already very generous offer of the McManus family to cover most of the very significant operating shortfall for three years,” he said.
He said that he hoped his €100k offer might see the decision to close the International Rugby Experience on December 23 reversed and keep the loss-making attraction open.
He suggested it would also “have helped small businesses in our city centre by bringing visitors right to the junction of Cecil Street and O’Connell Street and combat the high levels of vacancy that blight the city streets”.
Mayor Moran told Council members that he believes Christmas offers an opportunity to show new leadership for Limerick.
“As someone who used to run a small retail business, I may be one of the best positioned in this chamber to know that a key season for small retailers is the Christmas season,” he said.
“With a new Council, we have a chance to change direction and start afresh. We can all agree that Limerick is not well served by restricting that spend to €150,000 while other cities like Waterford, to which we look with envy, spend up to €500,000.”
Mayor Moran said he wanted to “use Christmas to create a more fun and enjoyable Limerick and, at the same time, battle the crisis in our city centre and county towns”.
“I am calling on councillors to help me do that and also increase their own allocation to Christmas by at least that amount.”
By trebling the money currently spent on Christmas activities next year, he said, Limerick would be brought more in line with other cities.
“This extra quarter of a million euro per annum is not just for the city centre. I would like to see €50,000 of this additional funding spent each year to improve Christmas in one or more of our county towns.”
Circling back to Cllr Kiely’s original question, and local club Treaty United, Mayor Moran revealed he has held a number of meetings with the club and expressed the importance of supporting their work.
He called on the Fine Gael councillor “and her political group to identify another project they would offer to delay from 2025 so as to permit instead the reallocation of this €100,000 of capital funding to the redevelopment of the Markets Field”.
