Council Affairs: The great Cruises Street cover up

Cllr Fergus Kilcoyne suggested that paving in the city be painted golden brown so "it won’t show up as much dirt", writes Sean Mellor.

THE town on its feet with tumbleweed blowing down O’Connell Street, business owners at logger heads with his lordship, and notions of Costa del proportions, but don’t panic – a cunning plan is now being formulated to cover over the real issues in true Limerick City and How’s Your Father fashion — a canopy!

Shur don’t we all think we’re living in Barcelona these days, anyway?

Public realm upgrades, we’re told, are coming down the road for Cruises Street, the Market Quarter including High Street and Mungret Street, Opera Square, and O’Connell Street. And the pièce de résistance for all this highfalutin’ smoke and mirrors, to bring people back into Treaty City on Sea, is a weathered steel covering.

Just watch this space — the punters will be tripping over the sandcastles and rock pools to get in from Dooradoyle for their share of thrills and spills at our all-new canopy at Quimper Square on Cruises Street. We won’t know ourselves with this fanciful awning contraption.

Earlier this year, councillors were dazzled by a presentation on some of this game-changing public realm that’s been dreamt up by the bigwigs on the big bucks. In fairness to our local representatives, most of them were more concerned about the filth of the pavements.

Cllr Fergus Kilcoyne suggested, at the time, that paving in the city be painted golden brown so “it won’t show up as much dirt”. That’s where we’re at!

The Fianna Fáil man showed real enthusiasm for a smokescreen canopy on Cruises Street. So enamoured was he with the idea that he even pleaded with the Council for new awnings along Lower Mallow Street to replace those “black with filth”.

Now, I’m told, there’s already an El Niño-sized storm brewing ahead of this month’s meeting of city council members over Summer in the City and, particularly, the cost of running this fun-filled pageant.

And as sure as the pontiff has a balcony, the rowing over Christmas will also start in the coming weeks when the Council gets back in full swing. Every year, like clockwork, a right old barney over the last-minute plans for December in the city centre kicks off when the rest of us, sensibly enough, have already booked ourselves in down in Waterford and Galway.

Not much has changed, really — just more bickering. The next thing you now, they will be brawling down in Merchants Quay over the naming of this proposed canopy.

The next few weeks are really going to shine a bright light on where this local government experiment is going to end up between now and the end of the term. The slaughterhouse, by the looks of it!