River Feast is off the Riverfest menu this year
RIVERFEST will be without its feast this year as the organisers of the barbecue competition say insufficient funding has been provided by the Limerick Co-ordination Office.
Both the Irish BBQ Association and the Co-Ordination Office have expressed disappointment that the River Feast World BBQ Cook-Off will not take place as part of Riverfest as planned this year. Last year the two-day competition - the largest of its kind in the world - attracted 100 teams from 100 countries around the world and was one of the highlights of the May festival.
Pat O'Sullivan, chairman of the Irish BBQ Association and organiser of River Feast, says the funding allocated by the Limerick Co-Ordination Office was simply not enough to run this year's competition.
"Last year, the Co-Ordination Office and Shannon Development provided us with €25,000 but this year, we have been only offered €10,000 which isn't enough. It's really amazing that they don't see this as worthy of spending money on because the city gets back 20 times what it invests in this."
Tara Hartigan, also an organiser of the competition, added that the BBQ Association doesn't stand to gain a penny out of running the Cook-Off but that it gave major exposure to the city, filled hotels and brought in visitors that would otherwise have never come.
"In total the competition takes about €106,000 to run but we need about €60,000 to get it going. On top of what we had been getting from the Co-Ordination office, we got money from sponsors and the rest is provided by other sponsors as benefit in kind," she said.
Mr O'Sullivan said that the Cook-Off will take place later this year separate from Riverfest, but that damage had been done to its reputation with teams having to cancel flights and change holiday plans.
"City Hall has always been helpful with this but the Co-Ordination Office board would seem to have decided this is no longer worth investing in. We know money is being spent elsewhere - €5,000 on a fireworks display for example - and we could run this with €20,000 which is very little when you consider how important it is for the local economy," he said.
Spokesperson for Limerick Co-Ordination Office Laura Ryan told the Limerick Leader that when speaking to Mr O'Sullivan last month, he had told her he would need at least €10,000 but that he had only said this would not be enough on Sunday last.
"Pat was told last year that while Limerick Co-Ordination Office runs Riverfest, it doesn't have the necessary funding to be the main public sponsor. Failte Ireland is the main source of public funding for festivals like this and we told him that there was a grant of between €30,000 and €50,000 available for events with a running cost of over €100,000."
Mr O'Sullivan disputes this, however, saying that he looked into applying for the grant and found that River Feast was not eligible.
"It just comes down to the fact that the money isn't there," continued Ms Ryan.
"We were told that €10,000 would be sufficient and we can't provide it when they come back to us so soon to the date saying that it isn't enough."
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Weather for Limerick
Tuesday 22 May 2012
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