Government agencies have failed estates, not Limerick Regeneration, says businesssman

BUSINESSMAN Ray O’Halloran says more blame should be put on government departments, rather than the Limerick Regeneration process for conditions that still prevail in marginalised city estates.

Mr O’Halloran, who runs Speedline Engineering, the only company in the Bays, Moyross, claims that the €300m process put in place the right conditions for job creation.

But, it was the other departments and agencies that did not step up to the mark, he claimed.

The Corbally man was reacting to a report, revealed in the Limerick Leader, that deprivation is worse in the area than in the pre-regeneration days of 2006.

“It’s very dangerous to blame regeneration. Regeneration is not there to create jobs. Where is the Department of Employment, the Department of Education, plus the IDA and the Department of Enterprise?

"Regeneration has created the conditions for jobs in the Bays, Moyross, and can’t do it alone. There is an industrial estate there for 40 years with no industry,” Mr O’Halloran said.

Sinn Fein TD Maurice Quinlivan, who lives near Moyross, says people “had the promise of regeneration stolen”.

Now there needs to be a “Limerick-focused solution” to tackle areas “with lack of jobs and potential”.

“We didn’t just need new houses and facilities. People, who had been left behind by the government needed supports and services as well as safe communities to live in,” he said

 “One of the most perplexing problems was the failure to recruit local people to work on rebuilding their own communities. People often with very skilled experience looked out of their front windows to see others doing work they would have been well capable of doing.”

Cathal McCarthy, Weston Gardens, believes there was no commitment to economic regeneration in the first place.

“They never intended to tackle the economic issues. They just shifted problems to new areas,” he said.

One of the reasons for this, he believes, is because local people were “locked out” of committees dedicated to each estate.