Could Dublin councillors be cut out of major plans for city centre – as councillors have been in Limerick?

When Dublin City Council officials outlined plans last month to set up a special arms-length company as a vehicle through which to “regenerate” the city centre, councillors seemed in favour. 

Limerick City and County Council had set up special purpose vehicles (SPVs) after all, said a report from executive manager Karl Mitchell.

But councillors did ask what their role would be. Like, there are councillors on Limerick’s SPVs aren’t there? said Fine Gael Councillor Ray McAdam, at the meeting.

There were. But not anymore.

There is disquiet now in Limerick among councillors, who say governance changes have cut them out. They have concerns, they say, about transparency, oversight, and the loss of control over what gets built on public land.

Limerick Twenty Thirty – a designated activity company (DAC) of which Limerick City and County Council is the sole shareholder – was set up in 2016 and tasked with developing and transforming five key sites in the city centre. 

Until last summer, three or four councillors sat on the boards of each of the county’s three arms-length companies, including the main one, Limerick Twenty Thirty.

That ensured transparency and oversight by public representatives, said Labour Councillor Joe Leddin.

Representatives on the board were nominated for those positions by the other councillors. 

But last year, John Moran, the first directly elected Lord Mayor of Limerick, was inaugurated in June and in July asked councillors to apply for positions on the boards instead and said that he would decide who got the positions, the Limerick Leader reported.

Labour Councillor Joe Leddin says councillors should be on those boards by virtue of being elected representatives. 

“The mayor made a decision last year that if the councillors wanted to remain on the DACs, they would have to reapply, literally send in a CV to justify why they want to be on certain DACs,” says Leddin.

As far as he is aware, no councillors applied for those roles and so none have been nominated, he says. 

Limerick City and County Council hasn’t responded yet to queries sent on Wednesday about councillor representation on the boards of the council’s three arms-length companies.

A spokesperson for Limerick Twenty Thirty says the company “has a proud record of engagement with all key stakeholders and has made this a priority since its inception.”

Moran didn’t directly respond to a question about whether councillors should be automatically represented on the boards. 

But a spokesperson for the Office of the Mayor said that, “The Mayor is committed to adopting the highest standards of governance at every level in Limerick.”

“The composition of the boards of Limerick City and County Council’s DACs and the vital oversight role of elected Councillors is currently under review,” they said.

There are advantages to setting up an arms-length company, says Leddin. The company can procure external expertise, he says. And “they can get things done faster”.

But councillors do sacrifice transparency and control over what gets built on public land.  “You have to do this with your eyes open,” says Leddin.

Councillors’ role

Limerick Twenty Thirty currently has four board members, according to company records. None of them are current councillors. 

They are former councillor James Collins, a director of real estate firm MDJ Developments Limited; Frank O’Neill, one of the founders of commercial real estate investors Hibernia REIT; Vincent Murray, director of planning at the council; and planning consultant Dianne McDonogh.

On Discover Limerick DAC, there are currently also four board members, Suzanne Goggin, Denise Brazil, Margaret Jenkins and Jill Cousins. There were seven resignations in total since April 2024. 

Innovate Engine DAC also has four directors, James Collins, Miriam Magner Flynn, John Gleeson and Joe Leddin. There were four resignations so far in 2025 including councillors and others. 

In November 2024, Moran, the lord mayor, said in a written response to a query from a councillor that he had legal advice that, as mayor, he is in control of the council’s shares for all three DACs.

The council is the only shareholder of the DACs. 

So it was down to him to exercise the role of “shareholder” for the companies “with a democratic mandate to deliver for Limerick”, he said.

Moran said that he would carry out a review of all three DACs and would advertise for expressions of interest for persons willing to serve as directors of the boards. 

In April, that call went out.

The positions were being advertised as part of the council’s “ongoing commitment to enhance skills and diversity on the boards of each of the three companies, along with maintaining a balanced and refreshed composition of these boards”, said the posting. 

“There is now a huge concern that the mayor has effectively taken all the councillors off the DACs,” says Leddin, the Labour councillor. 

Councillors are seeking clarity from the Department of Housing and Local Government on the issue, he says. 

As far as he knows, no councillor submitted their CV to apply to any of the boards. 

There are currently no councillors on the boards of two of the council’s arms length companies, Limerick Twenty Thirty and Discover Limerick, he says. 

Leddin is the only councillor on the board of Innovate Engine DAC, he says – because he didn't resign after the previous term. 

Fine Gael Councillor Dan McSweeney says that, according to the code of governance for local authorities, there must be councillors on the boards of subsidiary companies, but – aside from Leddin – there haven’t been any on the DACs in Limerick for over a year. 

“In addition to their leadership and governance roles elected members of local authorities must also have representation on stakeholder bodies such, as subsidiary company boards,” says the local government code of governance. 

The council shouldn’t continue to fund the DACs if they are not complying with oversight and governance requirements, says McSweeney. 

“There is a clear code of governance, and it's now time for the mayor to step up to the plate, or if he’s not, we need to stop funding these DACs,” he says. 

Conor Sheehan, a Labour TD for Limerick who was a councillor until December 2024, says that he doesn’t find dealing with Limerick Twenty Thirty to be a transparent process. 

It usually provides private briefings, while he thinks it should do so at public meetings, he says. 

“As a process, it's quite untransparent,” says Sheehan. “It's very hard to get answers from Limerick Twenty Thirty about anything.”

In November 2024, Moran wrote that he believed transparency could be kept through public disclosure in company documents and websites.

He would also look at setting up a “shareholder management unit” within the council which would meet with the DACs management to discuss progress and concerns, he said. 

That unit could help councillors engage in a semi-annual – or perhaps more frequent – review of the DACs, he said. 

“Our programme is fundamentally about transforming key strategic sites in Limerick into thriving nodes of economic, residential, cultural, and social activity,” says the spokesperson for Limerick Twenty Thirty. “Delivering on that mandate can only be achieved in a spirit of partnership with our stakeholders.”

Limerick Twenty Thirty provides briefings to local representatives at key stages on each development and carries out public consultations and public engagement, he said.

On public land

At a meeting of Dublin City Council in July, councillors backed the idea of establishing a special purpose vehicle to rejuvenate Dublin’s city centre – but also gently flagged concerns about oversight. 

Executive manager Karl Mitchell laid out who is expected to work on implementing these and other measures, which flow from the recommendations of the Taoiseach’s Taskforce for Dublin.

The taskforce covers the core city centre north and south of the Liffey and promises to regenerate O’Connell Street in particular and the city streets in general, tackle vacancy and dereliction, improve services for people who are homeless, increase policing and regenerate rundown council housing complexes. 

It’s unclear which of these tasks would fall under any SPV.

Setting up the company, similar to Limerick, is a way to move fast and keep finance “off-balance sheet” , said Mitchell – meaning that it wouldn’t add to the state’s debt under EU fiscal rules. 

Most councillors welcomed the approach, but some raised concerns about whether councillors would lose control of what gets built. 

Labour Councillor Dermot Lacey pointed to the taskforce’s report, and how it doesn’t make reference to councillors in the section about governance. It said the implementation team would be led by the Department of the Taoiseach.

Lacey doesn’t want civil servants, who he says have let the city down, overseeing this, he said. “I want to see an elected body determining the future of this city.”

By phone on Thursday, Lacey said he is surprised by what happened in Limerick but that he doesn’t think the same thing would happen in Dublin, since it doesn’t have a directly elected Mayor. 

Councillors should sit on the SPV and that should draw up a masterplan, he says. “It is all part of a general trend of councillors being removed more and more.” 

He is not against a short-term special company to deliver for Dublin, but “it has to be subject to some degree of democratic control or authority.”

Councillors hand over control of what happens to land once they hand over their sites to an arms-length company, says Sheehan, the Labour TD.

Sheehan and Leddin say that many councillors wanted to see housing included in a large city centre site at Opera Square, which is now being developed for offices, retail, a hotel and a library, he says. 

“I and others would strongly be of the opinion that that site, given that it was public land and given the crisis we are in at the moment, that a significant part of that must be housing,” says Sheehan. 

The DAC decided to use that land for an almost fully commercial development together with a library, says Leddin. “Because of the housing crisis, I want people living in the city.” 

Leddin says that he thinks if that decision had come to the council for a vote, the council would have voted to include homes. “So in that sense, you are losing control. Without a shadow of a doubt.”