MAYOR John Moran has again clashed with council director general Dr Pat Daly – this time over a financial report which revealed millions of euro of overspend in the local authority.
At this Monday’s bi-monthly council meeting, members were asked to look at the Audit and Risk Committee’s report.
In simple terms, this is an independent assessment providing information on the adequacy of the council’s financial controls, governance and risk management.
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Mayor Moran said: “I don’t want to overstate it, but I do think this isn’t a clean report” – and has called for quarterly updates from the audit committee, as opposed to once-a-year.
He said the audit committee should be “raising red flags” around issues which have been mentioned before, but not tackled.
“That’s something I have a problem with,” said the executive mayor.
However, Dr Daly hit back, saying: “I think it is a clean report. It’s as transparent as you can get.”
“I am the accounting officer in law. Which means I am accountable for the public monies that both come in the door and go out the door – this is what you see on the table. We have always debated the report.”
Upon inspecting the audit report, councillors raised concerns over a €3.1m overspend on the O’Connell Street revitalisation project – something council bosses say is subject to an inquiry.
Officials also pointed to a sharp increase in building costs post-Covid-19 for the overspend.
It was also noted that costs to bring empty council houses back to a liveable state were €51,000 per unit – €20,000 over the national average of €31,000.
Council’s finance director Matthew White said this figure had since become closer to the national average, with the audit report referring to 2024 as opposed to last year.
There was an overspend in relation to the management of both St Patrick’s Day and Riverfest, this month’s meeting heard.
Dr Daly wrote by way of explanation: “A range of stronger measures has been implemented, including enhanced contract documentation, improved internal procedures, electronic storage of all relevant documents, and the consistent use of approved officers’ orders.”
It’s the second time in the space of a week Mayor Moran and Dr Daly – who sat beside each other at the council’s top table – have clashed.
As revealed by Limerick Live, Mayor Moran had questioned plans to spend thousands of euro on a hotel dinner for councillors following a workshop session.
The directly elected mayor warned it would be “politically unpalatable” to spend what he calculated as up to €3,000 on a meal after the people of Limerick faced a difficult budget.
But Dr Daly insisted it is “normal practice” to provide such refreshments.
Councillors were due to gather at the Great National South Court Hotel in Raheen on Friday last for a workshop on the council’s corporate plan – a blueprint for how the local authority will operate in the years ahead.
The meeting was scheduled from 4pm to 6pm, with councillors and staff booked to dine in the hotel restaurant afterwards.
But in a letter to Dr Daly, obtained by the Limerick Leader, Mayor Moran made it clear he had reservations.
“I was not comfortable with the pre-arranged idea to have a dinner paid for by our budget,” he wrote last week.
“After messaging about a difficult budget, the idea of spending €2,500 to €3,000 on this is not, I believe, politically palatable. I am happy to go for dinner — but not from the public purse.”
Sources insist the actual cost would have been far lower — and say councillors were never told the details of the proposed dinner.
Dr Daly defended the meal.
“It is normal practice when having a council meeting or workshop to provide refreshments for those attending, particularly at that time of the day when people may have come to the meeting directly from work or other engagements,” he stated in one of the emails, all of which were issued at the start of last week.
In the end, the workshop never happened. It was cancelled after an independent facilitator — brought in to oversee the process — withdrew.
The disagreement over the proposed spend on the meal was included in detailed emails over a dispute about the council’s corporate plan — who leads it, who organises meetings, who directs officials and who signs off on the final document.
As Ireland’s first directly elected mayor, it is widely accepted that the respective powers of Mayor Moran and Dr Daly are poorly defined in law.
“These are of course teething problems being the first DEM,” accepted Mayor Moran in his email last week.
The disagreements first surfaced publicly last October when Mayor Moran criticised the council’s delivery of services, particularly around Christmas in an interview on local radio.
Dr Daly later sent an internal email to staff expressing his disappointment at the comments and in an unprecedented move, councillors passed a vote of confidence in the director general.
Council did not respond to a request for comment on the email exchange.