Damned if you do, Damned if you don’t
Doom and gloom abounds in this weeks Limerick Post. Cllr Diarmuid Scully, chairman of the Economic Policy committee here in Limerick has warned that “an increase in commercial rates would be an economic disaster for the city centre”
Borrowing from Bart Simpson’s “you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t” Cllr Scully warned that “If we want to maintain jobs in the city we cannot raise rates. Yet, if we don’t raise them, we cannot maintain the same level of service”.
Cllr Scully is suggesting creating a vision for the future development of the city
“We need to look at it how we can earn our living, and it’s not going to come from low-cost manufacturing”. One solution that Scully proposes is a convention centre and admitted to looking to get the project off the ground during his tenure as Mayor.
I’m tired of all these depressing doom and gloom stories that seem to get worse every week. Limerick city centre is fast becoming a ghost town. Increasing the rates would, in my opinion, force more shops into closure and accelerate further the decline of the city centre. Limerick needs inward investment into the city centre and needs to concentrate on higher end jobs like IT, banking etc and attract those types of industries to the city. With an international airport less than 30 minutes away we should be a hub for international business, finance or IT development. The council should move heaven and earth (or just lower rates) and attract high end companies into the city centre.