Skip to main content

Limerick Mayoral Election Still Facing Delays


It was an honour to don the Limerick Mayoral chains in 2015 for Limerick Council's inaugural Oíche Gaeilge, which I had established during my first year on the Council to mark Seachtain na Gaeilge.

I was acting as Deputy Mayor for this event, and once more during my council term, at the opening of the new facility for the Irish Wheelchair Association.

While I enjoyed the experiences, I would much rather see a Mayor and Deputy Mayor elected by the people of Limerick; but as I stated on national radio this week, I wouldn't be surprised if the people of Limerick are left waiting until 2024 before they can cast their vote.

The details of what role the new Mayor of Limerick will play in terms of the Council dynamic, and what powers they will have, are yet to be finalised. We don't know about election spending, if there will be a directly elected Deputy Mayor, and how the Mayor will work with the CEO, a position that would surely become redundant after the election, but will nonetheless cost the taxpayer €163,000 per annum.

These are all major issues which will not be solved overnight, and thus in my opinion we can rule out an election in the summer of 2022. We may well see it take place in late 2022, but I wouldn't be hopeful about that.

Then we come into 2023, and will the government really sanction a Mayoral election one year before a Council election? Possible, but I'd give it a 50-50 chance.

I think that at this late stage as we prepare to enter 2022 with little knowledge about the role of the Mayor and possibly a Deputy Mayor, a 2024 Mayoral election held on the same day as the Council and EU elections is the most likely outcome. Of course it shouldn't be, the government had well over a year to plan for this election before COVID came to Ireland, which was poor practice in itself to present a plebiscite to the people of Limerick, with no plan of how to implement it, and would appear a severe lack of will to implement it also.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What's The Beef With Beef ?

The Irish Beef Industry has been going through turbulent times recently, most notably because of the proposed Mercosur deal and the prices farmers receive for their cattle. We haven't even reached Brexit yet, and are still weeks out from the latest withdrawal deadline, and beef farmers are at their wits end. But how has it got to this and can farmers cope if there is a no-deal Brexit? Farmers' incomes are under threat, not just because of the reasons outlined above, but also because of the threat to grants which keep small and medium farms in business. The recent EU elections have seen the status quo remain in the European Parliament, with parties of the right keeping their large dominance of the union. There has been some debate surrounding the EU's agricultural plan over the course of the previous five year parliament, particularly regarding the EU's farm subsidy. Now that the elections are over, the EU government could proceed with plans which could see a standard
Post a Comment
Read more

Elitism Prevails

  Elitism Prevails   In 2013 the people of Ireland voted to retain our second house of democracy, Seanad Éireann; but it was a narrow victory and was predicated by a general understanding that the Irish electorate wanted to see this pathetic resemblance of democracy to be seriously reformed. Nine years later, that elitism that was promised to be rid from our flawed democracy is still thriving. Next month, March 2022, we will see a by-election for a Seanad seat that was vacated by the Labour Party’s Ivana Bacik when she was elected to the only truly democratic house in the state, Dáil Éireann. But despite an electorate in the millions, only some 60,000 people will be granted the privilege of voting; graduates from Trinity College Dublin, an institute with a deep history of elitism and sectarianism. Of the sixty seats in the Seanad, graduates of TCD have the privilege of voting for three of those Seanadóirí, and the combined institutes that form the National Universities of Irela
Post a Comment
Read more