Mayor asked to take 50% cut

Spook58

WITH austerity measures on the way, a call has been made on Mayor Gerry McLoughlin, to take a 50% slice in his salary, and for councillors to re-examine their perks. It comes from Fianna Fail’s Cllr Kieran O’Hanlon, fearful of the repercussions from a planned 10% reduction in city council’s local government funding. “I also believe that the annual payments made to chairs of the various Strategic Policy Committees should be done away with, and that civic receptions should be completely cut out. “This is an opportunity for the councillors to lead by example, volunteer to either forego the €4,700 annually they receive for attending conferences or accept half that amount.
“I have no qualms in asking the mayor to reduce his salary by half”.
Cllr O’Hanlon is in no doubt austerity measures will have a major negative impact on essential services.
“Overtime will be cut, there will have to be savings implemented in the running of parks, libraries road repairs and perhaps street cleaning etc., and very worryingly, there will probably be further cuts in disability grants - the question is - where do we go from here.
“We councillors need to know what austerity measures will be put in place”.
One councillor, who does not wish to be named, said that City Hall should abandon Civic and Freedom of the City receptions, especially in these difficult times.
The amount of money involved, he suggested, could be spent on better things. “I don’t even think the recipients would be in favour of the huge expenditure involved”.
There is every likelihood that an emergency meeting of Limerick City Council will be called within the next week.
Mayor McLoughlin has addressed the issue of a reduction of €800,000 in funding with the acting city manager.
Speaking to the Limerick Post, he said:
“The reduction is based on the percentage of domestic homes that have yet to pay the Household Charge in the city.
“I’ve requested from the city manager and our finance officials, that they prepare a report on where possible savings may be made for the council to consider as soon as is practical”.

http://www.limerickpost.ie/index.php/navigation-mainmenu-30/local-news/4817-mayor-asked-to-take-50-cut.html


More useless posturing by an irrelevant council.
Jimbo and Quimby won’t be interested in the council anymore if they can no longer milk every last cent out of it.

Insect Overlord

Can you provide a reference for the quotes above, please?

Spook58

Insect Overlord wrote: »

Can you provide a reference for the quotes above, please?

Added Limerick Post link for reference

Poxyshamrock

Every mayor has a car too, so they should get rid of buying a 13-L-1 in December.

There's no need for it.
And even if they don't have a car, maybe they can take a trip on the city's fantastic public transport system and see what it's really like.

godtabh

Poxyshamrock wrote: »

Every mayor has a car too, so they should get rid of buying a 13-L-1 in December.

There's no need for it.
And even if they don't have a car, maybe they can take a trip on the city's fantastic public transport system and see what it's really like.

Renault offered to supply new cars to lord mayors last year free of charge. I dont think many councils took them up on this. THis like this should be looked at

Spook58

Poxyshamrock wrote: »

Every mayor has a car too, so they should get rid of buying a 13-L-1 in December.

There's no need for it.
And even if they don't have a car, maybe they can take a trip on the city's fantastic public transport system and see what it's really like.

Can they still claim expenses for a car they don't have!

Cookiemunster

Poxyshamrock wrote: »

Every mayor has a car too, so they should get rid of buying a 13-L-1 in December.

There's no need for it.
And even if they don't have a car, maybe they can take a trip on the city's fantastic public transport system and see what it's really like.

AFAIK the mayors cars is sponsored and they definately haven't payed the for the 01 reg number in about 4 years.

Wilbert13

John Gilligan was first mayor not to have the 09-L-1 registration but they still get the sponsored car. Does the current mayor not cycle everywhere anyway?

Raiser

godtabh wrote: »

Renault offered to supply new cars to lord mayors last year free of charge. I dont think many councils took them up on this. Things like this should be looked at

I wouldn't take a present of a Renault either, might as well just start walking in the first place!!!

- I don't think superstars like Ginger should have their wages cut - He's an intellectual giant - Just look at all his 'African Language' street signs :P

zulutango

O'Hanlon is only putting this out there because himself and the rest on his side of the council have been completely locked out of the gravy train by Fine Gael and Labour. The councillors in Limerick City are of an extraordinarily low calibre. The only ones I would rate are Diarmuid Scully, Maurice Quinlivan, Kathleen Leddin and maybe Tom Shortt. The rest have little knowledge of or interest in Limerick, or are simply useless.

celticcrash

zulutango wrote: »

O'Hanlon is only putting this out there because himself and the rest on his side of the council have been completely locked out of the gravy train by Fine Gael and Labour. The councillors in Limerick City are of an extraordinarily low calibre. The only ones I would rate are Diarmuid Scully, Maurice Quinlivan, Kathleen Leddin and maybe Tom Shortt. The rest have little knowledge of or interest in Limerick, or are simply useless.

John Gilligan knows the history of limerick, better than the rest of them put togeather. Is Tom Short still claiming for compo for jumping off his old neighbours shed. LOL.

stock>

No point in having them take a 50% pay cut, we need a 50% cut in the number of politicians, and a 75% cut in the number of councils and city councils we have; this country can't afford this level of political bureaucracy

sdanseo

stock> wrote: »

No point in having them take a 50% pay cut, we need a 50% cut in the number of politicians, and a 75% cut in the number of councils and city councils we have; this country can't afford this level of political bureaucracy

You should google politics in the US. Every city (here, that would be a very small town) has a Mayor, local council, it's own fire department, own Police, everything. We're a microeconomic utopia in comparison.

stock>

sdeire wrote: »

You should google politics in the US. Every city (here, that would be a very small town) has a Mayor, local council, it's own fire department, own Police, everything. We're a microeconomic utopia in comparison.

We are not America but a European based economy an so should take our lead from there...........

As we have only a population of 4 million then why do we need nearly ten times the local authorities of what the UK has...........

We have a local authority for every 12,500 people................

Wiki lists "346 local authorities in England", this gives an average of 153,179 per local authority

sdanseo

I was extracting the piss from the US system of doing things, not praising it. A light-hearted comment

Stab*City

Should be a 50% cut in their staff as well. Useless the lot of em. The sponsored car should and always should have been donated to charity.

Cookiemunster

Stab*City wrote: »

The sponsored car should and always should have been donated to charity.

??? They don't get to keep the car. The dealer takes it back every January.

Stab*City

Cookiemunster wrote: »

??? They don't get to keep the car. The dealer takes it back every January.

Ya so give it to someone who needs it..

Cookiemunster

Stab*City wrote: »

Ya so give it to someone who needs it..

You do understand the idea of a sponsorship don't you? If the mayor isn't driving around in their car then the dealership isn't going to donate the car for a year.
There is a lot of wasted money in the council, but seeing as this car is sponsored it isn't one of them. He'd still be claiming travel expenses drivng his own car.

Stab*City

Cookiemunster wrote: »

You do understand the idea of a sponsorship don't you? If the mayor isn't driving around in their car then the dealership isn't going to donate the car for a year.
There is a lot of wasted money in the council, but seeing as this car is sponsored it isn't one of them. He'd still be claiming travel expenses drivng his own car.

No need to be smart. Yes i do understand the idea of sponsorship. I think it would be much more worthwhile for the dealer to donate the vehicle to someone who needs it. I never said anything about travel expenses.

Cookiemunster

Stab*City wrote: »

No need to be smart. Yes i do understand the idea of sponsorship. I think it would be much more worthwhile for the dealer to donate the vehicle to someone who needs it. I never said anything about travel expenses.

It may be worthwhile, but it's never going to happen.

zulutango

stock> wrote: »

No point in having them take a 50% pay cut, we need a 50% cut in the number of politicians, and a 75% cut in the number of councils and city councils we have; this country can't afford this level of political bureaucracy

I never thought I'd be defending them, but if you remove the politicians (bad and all as they are), then you give free reign to the faceless bureaucrats who actually have a lot more influence. Make no mistake about it, these are the people who are really pulling the strings in the city. The politicians like to bluster about how they are doing things because that will get them votes, but practically every decision and idea and ****-up can be traced to the officials, i.e. the city manager, and especially the directors of services of the various departments. While we have a very low calibre of elected representative in Limerick, we have an equally low calibre of local government official. But the spotlight is hardly ever shone on them. To make matters worse, most of them are neither from the city, nor do they live within it. Is it any wonder that Limerick has the problems that it has?

Silentcorner

I see a FF councillor in Cork has called for the EXACT same thing...in my day FF were a bit slicker than this...a group email sent to their skelaton local representative body, they still have friends in the press tho, I'll give them that...

FF - they haven't gona away you know.....

Until all of these guys are taken from office this country ( not to mention this city) will never progress ( we will recover from this economic mess IMO despite them ) but socially we will continue to get it wrong

Any politician who stood over Regeneration should be hunted from office, they were all warned that it was going to be a disaster...

zulutango

Silentcorner wrote: »

I see a FF councillor in Cork has called for the EXACT same thing...in my day FF were a bit slicker than this...a group email sent to their skelaton local representative body, they still have friends in the press tho, I'll give them that...

FF - they haven't gona away you know.....

Until all of these guys are taken from office this country ( not to mention this city) will never progress ( we will recover from this economic mess IMO despite them ) but socially we will continue to get it wrong

Any politician who stood over Regeneration should be hunted from office, they were all warned that it was going to be a disaster...

Fine Gael are as bad. They've been in control of the city council since 1999. Think of gombeens like Long, Kiely, Hourigan and Hurley!

Raiser

Wage cut demands from Fianna Fail?

- Is that not like that Italian cruise ship Captain standing on the hull of the vessel he had sunk while yelling that that the restaurant prices on board should be dropped???

Kieran O'Hanlon please have the grace and decency to STFU and leave the scene of the crime........