“WHERE there isn’t leadership, where there isn’t communication, where there isn’t delegation, there isn’t trust, where there isn’t a spirit of collegiality, togetherness and teamwork, any company is on shaky ground.”
This was the warning issued to Mayor of Limerick John Moran and the Council’s Director General Dr Pat Daly at this Monday’s full meeting of the local authority from Labour Party councilor Joe Leddin.
Concerns raised by Mayor John Moran at the meeting when asked to consider the Statutory Audit Report proved a red flag moment for councillors watching on in the Dooradoyle chamber.
Cllr Leddin took the view that the questions the Mayor was asking the Director General gave the impression that the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing. The City West representative then proposed an in-house committee meeting to get clarity around the Mayor’s role in terms of the head of the organisation.
“In relation to the Corporate Plan, there was a myriad of emails going hither and thither last week between the Mayor’s Office and the executive and the councillors. Then the workshop that was happening, wasn’t happening, then it was happening and wasn’t happening again. Even following on from the questions that the Mayor has asked, I think there’s still an element, notwithstanding we’re bedding in a year and a half into this Council, that clarity is needed around the Mayor’s role,” Cllr Leddin told the meeting.
He proposed the Council hold an in-house committee meeting to get “an element of reset”.
“We’ve had all sorts of bumps on the road in the last year-and-a-half, some were expected, some were unexpected, but the reality is, we all want to come in and do business, to see business done, and to maximise the potential of the city and county, but we need to do that collectively together.
“The last thing any of us want to see as councillors is either the Mayor or DG having to quote statutory acts and statutory instruments – that sends out such a poor precedent to the people looking in. When we’re going down that road, we’ve lost already,” he insisted.
Fianna Fáil councillor Kieran O’Hanlon took the opportunity to quiz the Mayor on his meetings with Ministers.
“The Mayor mentioned that there was €5million due from Government. You have direct access to ministers, Mayor, we don’t. Have you raised that with ministers and did they listen to you or did they ignore you?
“It would be nice to know we’re getting results as a result of having a directly-elected Mayor,” Cllr O’Hanlon suggested.
Fine Gael councillor John Sheahan told Council management that councillors accept they have a new way of doing business since the election of the first directly-elected Mayor in 2024. But he wanted answers on where the alleged “connect/non-connect” within the organisation was now coming from.
“We have a tripartite system in Limerick City and County Council – we have a directly-elected Mayor, we have an executive, and we have a chamber. To be honest with you, watching what’s after going on, you’d swear that the top table aren’t talking to one another at all,” Cllr Sheahan insisted.
“I’m a little bit confused with the way things are working now. I asked this question before, the DG is the accounting officer, but he’s the accounting officer to whom?”
Cllr Sheahan said that “we now seem to have a situation where the directly-elected Mayor is also a councillor, which only confuses things. I find it very odd the questions the Mayor has asked if he has asked them in the capacity as a directly-elected Mayor, because if you haven’t had a conversation with the Chief Finance Officer or the Director of Finance in this organisation in relation to those statutory reports, we have a problem, we’ve a major problem.”
“Who’s the gaffer?” he asked.
The Fine Gael man called for a roadmap to be drawn up showing who is responsible for what within the organisation. He said it was time for compromise, and to bring back the reputation of the local authority.
“If we don’t get there soon, this chamber is going to have to do it. We’re the 40 members, we have our reserve function, and it’s becoming evident we should be taking control.”
Referencing this newspaper, Cllr Sheahan said that councillors were “getting slightly tired of opening the Post and it’s all about the ‘them and us’ in relation to the executive versus the Mayor and the councillors versus the Mayor, and I’m sick to my teeth of it”.
“We’re facing an Armageddon crisis if this thing isn’t sorted.”
Director General Dr Pat Daly said that he was also getting concerned about items in the press and issues being played out in public. He believed an in-house committee meeting could be “useful and helpful”.
“It is very difficult to try and work forward, in particular when other places are looking in at us and seeing that there’s a split in the camp, or a perceived split in the camp,” he said.
“We are still in settling pain, there’s no two ways about that. We have to go to law now and again because we don’t have all the answers in the statute. I would prefer when that happens that we stay to the status quo and work through until we have the proper legal advice. We’ll have to find a way into the future,” Dr Daly concluded.
– Local Democracy Reporting Scheme