Cllr Gilligan's deal with Fine Gael collapsed just hours before the new City Council met for the first time on Monday to elect Fine Gael's Kevin Kiely as the 813th Mayor of Limerick.

Though Cllr Kiely was elected unopposed, the party needed Cllr Kennedy's vote to secure the deputy mayoralty for first-time Cllr Denis McCarthy, ahead of Independent Kathleen Leddin.

Fine Gael have now confirmed that Cllr Kennedy will be given the mayoral chain in 2012 in return for his support, which will secure a nine-vote majority for the party. Cllr Cormac Hurley will now take up the mayoralty in 2013 at the expense of Cllr McCarthy, who will miss out.

Cllr Gilligan told the Limerick Leader that he withdrew from his pact with Fine Gael, which would have seen him rewarded with a committee chairmanship for the next five years, because he felt it would be unfair to exclude the long-serving Cllr Leddin, who has never been mayor.

"I have no problem entering into a pact with anyone as long as everyone on the council is treated fairly. Since I've been on the City Council since 1991 I've taken the attitude that the mayoralty should go to the long-serving councillors who deserve it. I think we should have had a look at Kathleen Leddin. She's been a very good worker, a very effective worker, and she deserves it."

It was Cllr Leddin's vote that infamously secured the mayoralty for Cllr Gilligan last year after she withdrew from an agreement to support Cllr Kiely for the position.

Cllr Gilligan denied reports that Cllr Leddin had pressured him to pull out of the voting pact, stating that he simply could not back the newly elected Cllr McCarthy for the deputy mayoralty ahead of her: "Was I supposed to turn up and vote for a man for deputy mayor who's just been elected to the council for the first time, ahead of a long serving councillor?"