MAYOR of Limerick John Moran says he is confident the International Rugby Experience will not be empty and out of use come the New Year.
It came after he said he is willing to give €100,000 a year in funding to help cover its costs and keep the troubled facility afloat for the next three years.
He was speaking after a marathon four-hour meeting of the council was called following the news the €30m facility will close to the public in December with the loss of 18 jobs.
The news emerged just months after it was announced JP McManus, who funded the complex, had agreed to ‘gift’ it to Limerick City and County Council.
“I think that one way or the other with JP and his team they will find some use for that building. I hope we have decoupled two important issues. The family and the International Rugby Experience would like this to stay open for three years. We would like this to be active for the three years. We want the staff in there to continue to have jobs,” said the mayor.
At the meeting, Mayor Moran disclosed that it is the McManus family’s wish to keep the facility open for the next three years, so it can be enjoyed by the influx of tourists who will come to Limerick for the 2027 Ryder Cup at Adare Manor.
“Let’s focus on this immediate priority,” Mayor Moran said in an interview with Limerick Today on Live 95FM this Wednesday.
The first citizen explained that following the signing of the agreement which paved the way for the gifting of the International Rugby Experience, there was an understanding that the facility was losing nearly €500,000 each year.
Although he said the McManus family have pledged to cover some of this, it will still leave the council facing a bill of €100,000 each year over the three years it’s hoped the Experience will stay open.
To this end, Mayor Moran has offered €100,000 from his dedicated mayoral budget each year to cover the cost.
He made the commitment at the end of the meeting, which lasted from 4pm to 8pm on Tuesday evening, and was attended by the majority of the 40 council members, the local authority director general Dr Pat Daly and finance bosses.
The meeting was broadcast online to those who had received a link after expressing interest in witnessing proceedings.
Among the names of the almost 50 attendees listed as watching were JP McManus, John Power and Helen O’Donnell.
Mayor Moran told Live95FM that in the days following his taking up of office, he had a telephone call with Mr McManus about the International Rugby Experience.
He admitted there was a “difference of opinion” on the figures around the complex.
It was off the back of this, he said, that the council and Mr McManus appointed Shannon International Development Consultants to run projections on the facility and how quickly it could break even.
And this week, Paul Ryan of this company disclosed to councillors that the Rugby Experience was on course to lose almost €700,000 this year.
The first citizen said he hopes his agreement to use €100,000 will open the door to more regular dialogue between JP McManus and the operators of the International Rugby Museum, which had attracted under 12,000 visitors up to the end of May.
He claimed that in the past, he has reached out to Mr McManus’s representatives for talks to hammer out a deal, but it wasn’t taken up.
“Now having put something more on the table yesterday, hopefully this finds us a solution so on January 5, we can go into the museum and throw a rugby ball. And I’d love to do that,” he added.
Mayor Moran says it’s important to separate the building in O’Connell Street and the International Rugby Museum itself.
“The building is a very valuable building. The problem is the activity there is losing money, we had to see what services and others we could cut,” he said.
As stated earlier, it is the wish of the McManus family that the International Rugby Experience continues to operate until after the 2027 Ryder Cup.
This prompted Mayor Moran to seek more money from the JP McManus foundation, on top of the €1.2m it has already pledged to help keep the facility afloat.
He said: “This felt fair to me, if it was losing money in Limerick.”
The directly elected mayor also referenced what he described as a “red line” in the deal to gift the International Rugby Experience to Limerick – that it cannot be sold, and must remain in civic use.
This, in effect, means the building will not be able to be used to leverage funding elsewhere.
He explained: “If you have a building you own, but you could in theory sell in the future, even if you do not want to, it allows you to raiase finance. This is the council that does not have the funds to build a community centre in Herbertstown. I am asked every day by people for different things, and I am really having difficulty having to say no, because the numbers are not there.”
Mayor Moran also ruled out ploughing more money over the €100,000-a-year from his own budget into the Rugby Experience.
“If I did decide to proceed in that manner, it would mean allocating €6m or €7m of the mayoral budget to just this project. I would say to council: you don’t need to worry about your own budget. I’d say to national government, you don’t need to come up with any money. We are not going to proceed with €6m or €7m of projects identified in an election where the people of Limerick were priorities. I don’t think that’s the right tyhing to do,” he added.
The directly elected mayor also said that had government aceded to his wish to secure an infrastructure package especially for Limerick, the issue of funding the International Rugby Experience into the future may not have arisen.
ADVERTISEMENT – CONTINUE READING BELOW
ADVERTISEMENT – CONTINUE READING BELOW
ADVERTISEMENT – CONTINUE READING BELOW
ADVERTISEMENT – CONTINUE READING BELOW
ADVERTISEMENT – CONTINUE READING BELOW
ADVERTISEMENT – CONTINUE READING BELOW
ADVERTISEMENT – CONTINUE READING BELOW
ADVERTISEMENT – CONTINUE READING BELOW
ADVERTISEMENT – CONTINUE READING BELOW
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source link
