Limerick mayor defends pace of city-centre progress amid retail decline concerns

MAYOR of Limerick, John Moran has defended the pace of progress on revitalising the city centre, insisting that visible improvements are emerging despite ongoing pressures on retail and repeated calls from councillors for faster action.

Responding to a mayoral question from Cllr Catherine Slattery about what steps he has taken to revitalise the city centre, Mayor Moran said work is ongoing to draft a tender brief for consultants to prepare a targeted ten-year retail development plan for the city centre.

He added that a Vacant Property Incentive Scheme is being finalised for Budget 2026 which will apply to properties vacant for six months or more operating over a four-year period.

Mayor Moran said: “A significant allocation from the Mayoral Fund was committed to the detailed design, greening and public works for laneways and streets with Newtown Pery. The delivery of these did not proceed as I had hoped over 2025, but they remain priorities for 2026 now.”

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He added that a new child friendly pocket park is planned for Parnell Street, including an agility and obstacle area and other landscape enhancements, creating a more attractive and family-friendly environment.

Speaking at this week’s meeting of Limerick City and County Council, Mayor Moran said national schemes for SMEs and retailers were being fully utilised locally and argued that the city centre was “seeing a new dynamic” despite the wider national struggle facing traditional retail.

“I’m probably more optimistic about the city centre when you walk around at the moment,” he said, pointing to what he described as early signs of regeneration around O’Connell Street. He highlighted the transformation of the former Debenhams building, noting that its redevelopment had already lent “impact” to the area.

The Mayor said further advances would become visible in the coming months as a series of proposals—including the Milk Market area—move through consultation and towards construction. “We’ll start to see more visible stuff when we start putting shovels in the ground,” he said.

Cllr Catherine Slattery said she was “disappointed” by the response, arguing that the projects mentioned were already in train before the mayor’s tenure.

Mayor Moran countered that the Mayoral Office had already played a crucial role in preventing the closure of CCTV systems across the county. “If we hadn’t had the Mayoral Fund, we would have had to seriously think about closing down CCTV cameras,” he said.

Cllr Michael Collins said the biggest setback to date remained the closure of the International Rugby Experience, which shut last December after just 19 months in operation.

“The most significant failure… is the closure of the Rugby Experience,” he said. “Has anything happened since our last meeting? Has there been further movement on what’s to be done with that building?”

Cllr Tommy Hartigan added that newly published accounts showed the visitor attraction recorded a €1m loss in 2024 despite a €700,000 donation, following a €12m donation and further losses the previous year. “It's a combined loss per annum over 2023-24 of €6m which Limerick City and County Council would have to have made up for if it had taken on the Rugby Experience so we would have to take from housing or road maintenance so to say we dodged a bullet by not taking on the Rugby Experience is no exaggeration.”

Cllr Joe Leddin said while he accepted the financial risks, the building could not be allowed to remain idle. “It’s unacceptable to have that iconic building empty,” he said, urging the Mayor to restart discussions and explore potential alternative uses. He added that the best thing we can do for the city centre is shop in the city centre.”

Cllr Daniel Butler added that bigger strategic measures were needed to respond to major shifts in retail patterns. These included developing a support structure for long-established family-run businesses facing succession issues and creating incentives to attract major brands back into the city.

“We need to make a big effort I think to go out and attract traders into the centre, big brand names into the city centre and that will require some funding for that to happen. And in particular one of the biggest challenges for any new retail business is the fit out costs and I think we need to look at developing a fit out policy that looks at supporting a grant scheme that helps those businesses set up and maybe also I would suggest some sort of an incubator in relation to retail so possibly having a couple of models of business that we would take over."

Cllr Joe Leddin echoed this, pointing to the challenge posed by small unit sizes in streets like Cruises Street and noting that the large-format redesign of the former Debenhams building had enabled a new UK retailer to commit to the site.

Pat Daly, Director of Services, concluded: “The only way to support the city is to actually get in the city and do that as regularly as we can.” He encouraged wider use of the council-backed retail gift card scheme.