‘Mayor with the dog’ details possible Limerick ‘gamechangers’

MAYOR John Moran says, as an openly gay man, he “couldn’t imagine a scenario where he would have won an election in Limerick” a decade ago.

Sitting in his top-floor council office, overlooking the River Shannon, with his faithful dog Henri by his side, the mayor says his sexuality was a “non-issue” on the doorsteps when he campaigned successfully to be Limerick’s first directly elected first citizen this year.

Although he has never hidden his orientation - he is in a long-term relationship with partner Damien Duggan - his Red Setter was more of a talking point among Limerick’s electorate.

“The new mayor of Belfast (Micky Murray) has been described as the first openly gay mayor of Belfast. What I love is nobody has said this in Limerick. Now, it’s like, ‘he is the mayor with the dog’. That’s more of a conversation piece than Damien being my partner. That, to me, is a huge vote of confidence in Limerick for the future, that effectively it was a non-issue,” he says.

Mayor Moran admits that before he started campaigning for the role, the thought did cross his mind that it might “rear its head”.

“I don’t think I could have done this 10 years ago. If this election was 10 years ago, I probably would not have gone for the election. I couldn’t have imagined a scenario in which I would have won the election in Limerick.”

He says he “absolutely” feels like an ambassador, and adds: “Hopefully other people who have similar issues they want to not yet talk about in public, at least know they do not need to feel afraid from a work or personal perspective of it coming out.”

In the first part of an in-depth interview with Limerick Live last week, Mayor Moran spoke of his early departure from the Department of Finance, after just two years, outlining how he felt people were “prying” into his private life.

Before that disclosure, there was some speculation that he would not finish out his five-year term as directly elected mayor.

He shoots this suggestion down, pointing to his ambitious plan of over 100 pages which was unveiled last month.

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“I think it’s pretty obvious I am here to stay. This job is not going to get done overnight. It’s the first time in local government you’ve got five years. This is a pathway, I think, to a fairer and more successful Limerick, and that’s the place I want to live in.”

While his plan covers rural Limerick, Mayor Moran has placed a special focus on the city centre, in particular housing and getting the local economy moving.

He is envisaging Limerick and O’Connell Street, as a “place which never sleeps”.

Arguably, it helps that he has a vested interest with his ownership of properties in the city’s heart - one of which he plans to live in soon.

“I have lived right in the heart of Georgian Limerick and I want to live there again. I spend a lot of time in the city. I think if you know you have five years, it is much easier. You can’t fix everything in one go, but you can start to come up with where you are going to go, and how do you get there each year as the budget is available.”

One of the things he is proposing is a so-called Vienna Model of housing, based on an approach taken in the Austrian capital.
It’s not something which is in people’s everyday lexicon, Mayor Moran acknowledges.

“It’s radical for Ireland. I don’t think some people understand just how radical an intervention I was proposing in the housing plan. The first thing we need to see is a more significant government intervention in public housing than we have seen,” he says.

“The Department of Housing’s plan has been to buy existing homes, use them for social housing, rather than send the cranes in and build them. Essentially, the government is paying somebody else’s mortgage. If you take the view I would have that 25% of all the housing in Limerick should be owned by government, that allows you to tame the market in how you see them react to charging rent to people,” he continues.

“The Vienna Model works on the principle that if you start now, instead of renting homes from others, you build your own homes. You then use the rent people are paying, plus the money the State would have paid (to private landlords) to effectively pay down the mortgages on those homes.”

The first citizen believes that, in 30 years time, the final parts of these mortgages will be paid off.

“From that moment on, the rent on that property, be it an apartment or house, will now be able to help them subsidise the rents for other people,” he explains.

Mayor Moran does not have a role in crime prevention - but it’s something he would like to see taken into his purview.

Something which is a major bugbear for people living in the city centre, and retailers running businesses in the urban area has been an increase in crime and drug abuse.

“There is an acknowledgement the gardai are underresourced. What they are doing is trying to use their resources as efficiently as they can. We have been in conversations with them about whether we can introduce during the day the community wardens idea. The guards are on the streets a lot more. We see more squad cars going around. It’s an important part of the solution. But they need resources as well. They put the van in O’Connell Street a couple of days and behaviour changed. But they don’t have that van full time. They only borrow it a couple of times a year.
“We need to try and get that van full-time,” Mayor Moran insists.

He says it goes back to his call - made in the first part of our interview last week - to give the executive mayor his own envelope of money which he can direct to where he sees fit.

In the past, people have complained the city can become something of a ‘dead zone’ from when offices close into the evening.

There is one element in Mayor Moran’s plan which he feels could be a “gamechanger” for the urban area - a cinema.

He has identified the former Theatre Royal building in Cecil Street.

“It’s an amazing building, but it’s in a really poor condition. It goes back to what we said about having the funds. How does that currently work? You have to wait until government decides they will have a competitive call-out across the country for people who want to do cinemas. They’ll do it for the next three years, and it’s hard to find funding. That’s why it all comes down to the concept I’m trying to get across in the budget. If we bring it down to Limerick, what it’ll mean is we have a debate here about whether in 2025, the most important thing to do is have a cinema in Limerick, get a van for the guards. Or do we plan homes. Then at least it is our decision,” he says.

One thing people can do now though, is patronise the Belltable Theatre in O’Connell Street, which shows independent films every Monday evening.

“It’s easier to justify a cinema in the city centre if the Belltable is full every Monday, and they are trying to figure out do they do Tuesday and Wednesday.”

While Mayor Moran acknowledges it can be frustrating to keep contacting the gardai about crime in the city, it is necessary.

“If we are to get more resources to deal with crime - the more you should report. Even if you’re walking home at night and feeling threatened. If that doesn’t get reported to the gardai, they don’t have it in the crime stats so Limerick looks like it doesn’t have these issues,” he explains.

Away from the urban area, comments the mayor made in relation to rural Ireland back in 2016 were brought up during the election campaign.

At the time, he warned the State can no longer afford to subsidise the personal choices people make when they elect to live in the countryside.

Although opponents of his seized on the comments, he said it was not raised among any of the people he encountered throughout rural Limerick.

“It didn’t come up at all. But two things have changed. We have nearly €40bn more money every year now. We were still in a situation where we had unsustainable debt. What it meant is, if you take a decision recognising that we are looking at one million to 1.5m more people living in the country, if you want to continue building the State the way we did it at the time, it’s a more expensive option.

“That’s not anti-rural. In some respects, it’s saying the way we were building rural Ireland will cost more money than we had,” he says.

Mayor Moran actually believes he was ahead of the curve - and he has been proven correct, given how the construction of once-off houses across rural Ireland is now restricted in development plans.

“What I was recommending at the time is, let’s have broadband put into rural villages, into towns, and encourage people to live in these areas rather than the once-off houses.

“It’s much better if I can walk to work. If I can’t walk to work, it’s better if I come in on public transport. We can’t put public transport to every house across Limerick,” he points out.

What with the Indian summer Limerick and Ireland has been enjoying in late September, it’s hard to believe that Christmas is less than three months away.

Limerick will see an improved festive offering over the coming years, Mayor Moran has pledged.

He wants to see businesses working in tandem to provide an unforgettable experience.

“How can we change the way Limerick works so there isn’t just one spot in front of Penneys where Christmas happens? Where the whole of Limerick, particularly the core historic part, feels Christmassy. It might not happen in the first year. But that should evolve to being that if you’re walking up O’Connell Street or Mallow Street, that there is a Christmas tree in every window of every Georgian building.

“It shouldn’t be that difficult, but, collectively, if everybody can take part in this...” he says. “We can do competitions for people who do the best shop fronts, for example.”

There are other plans - helped by what he feels was a successful period in August when the Crescent area beside the Daniel O’Connell monument was closed to traffic and became something of a public park.

“The experiment I believe was really successful in changing the minds particularly of people who live around that area of what that space can be. I have asked before what would be the ramifications in terms of inconveniencing people of having something like a Christmas market in this area,” he states.

Also expected this year is the Santa Experience at the International Rugby Experience, plus the ice rink in Arthur’s Quay Park.

“Then, what do we do in Bedford Row, and what do we do around King John’s Castle? That’s how you animate the whole city then. All the shops inbetween feel included.”

After Christmas, it will not be long before the St Patrick’s Day celebrations kick in.

Don’t expect Mayor Moran to join the exile of politicians leaving Ireland to view parades overseas, however.

“I’ll stay in Limerick,” he confirms.

“This is what I mean by being in the community. It is where it is. I can go to New York anytime,” he points out.

Mayor Moran believes some overseas travel is necessary, so he is planning to allocate funding to individual councillors to afford them the choice of how they want to “internationalise” Limerick on the national holiday.