Work on multi-million euro project in Limerick city may stretch beyond Easter period

A WELL-RESPECTED city businessman has called for work on the O’Connell Street revitalisation plan to take place around-the-clock and at weekends.

Tadhg Kearney, who runs a jewellery business at Thomas Street in the city centre, has described the management of the €9.1m project as being “chaotic”.

The former Limerick Chamber president sits on a stakeholder group for the scheme, and says for him, this exercise “has been a complete waste of time”, describing communication from all parties as “very poor”.

He said: “We need to hear firm timelines. We need a firm focus, and not just a continuing saga where we get updates each week where things just go on and on and on.

“This seems to be just a nine to five Monday to Friday job. If you go on the motorways, you’d find people working at two o’clock in the morning so as not to cause disruption to people in the daytime.”

The businessman’s comments come in a week where the Limerick Leader revealed that it could now be April before the massive project is completed – almost six months later then the final completion date indicated by council at its inception.

In a bid to ensure the latest date is met, the main contractor, Shareridge, has taken the decision to ramp up the number of workers on site by around 15%.

University Hospital Limerick was the most overcrowded hospital nationwide in February

Work on the multi-million euro revamp of Limerick’s main thoroughfare began in April 2021 with a projected completion date of November 2022.

Now, sources with knowledge of the project have indicated it might not be until after Easter when the work is 100% finished.

Once complete, the redevelopment of O’Connell Street will see wider footpaths to allow people to gather, planters, seating areas, and spill-out zones outside businesses.

The new plan will see general traffic being reduced to one lane on the street – and a bus lane, with water features and a central plaza at the Thomas Street/O’Connell Street junction.

Last year, the then mayor of Limerick, Cllr Daniel Butler said work on O’Connell Street was to be largely complete by September 2022 – with the final touches in place two months later.

However, in September, the Leader revealed a fresh completion date of November 25 had been set – but if this was missed, workers would move off site for Christmas and return in January, with the hope it would be complete early in 2023. Now it appears that it will be more than a quarter of the way into this year before this happens.

Shareridge referred queries from this newspaper to Arup, the council’s representatives on site.

Arup, in turn, referred the Leader to the local authority.

Limerick City and County Council had not commented on the matter at the time of going to press this Tuesday afternoon.