Billionaire racehorse owner JP McManus has endorsed Independent candidate Helen O’Donnell to be the first directly elected mayor of Limerick.
The Limerick native praised Ms O’Donnell’s “integrity” and said he has “no doubt she’s the right person for the job”.
Ms O’Donnell, a businesswoman whose late husband Tom was a Fine Gael TD and MEP, left the party earlier this year to run in the mayoral election as an Independent. She previously said she was not running for Fine Gael as she believes the role of mayor should be “above party politics”.
She is a committee member of the JP McManus Benevolent Fund. During a televised debate on RTÉ last Monday, she cited involvement in overseeing the €40 million fund as part of her qualifications to be mayor.
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The June 7th election in Limerick is the first to an office this kind in Ireland. While the person elected mayor will not have the same range of powers as a North American-style mayor, the winner will command a large mandate in a county of more than 200,000 people. With hotly contested hustings on local and national media, and a focus on the personalities involved, the campaign has been presidential in nature.
The job of directly elected mayor comes with a salary of just over €154,000 and a budget of €8 million a year to be spent on projects and initiatives. The most significant power the mayor will have is proposing the annual budget for Limerick City and County Council. This will still have to be approved by councillors.
In a statement issued through Ms O’Donnell’s campaign, Mr McManus said: “There are many excellent candidates running for mayor, but my number one vote is for Helen O’Donnell.”
“She’s someone who gets things done and has a great ability to motivate people in an understated yet determined way,” he said. “She understands the charitable sector and the needs of the more vulnerable people in society while her work is always on a voluntary basis.”
Meanwhile, businessman and former Munster and Ireland rugby star Jerry Flannery has backed Independent candidate John Moran, to be mayor saying: “I think he’s going to make a real change.”
Mr Flannery, now a Limerick pub owner, expressed his support for the former Department of Finance secretary general in a video posted on social media. He said he does not have any “political affiliations or leanings” but that “the parties seem to work against each other so the public, we get a suboptimal result”.
He said Mr Moran has “extensive knowledge of working with huge budgets at a national level” and “he’s 100 per cent independent”.
There are 15 candidates in the race to be Mayor of Limerick, the other 13 are:
Dee Ryan – Fianna Fáil
Maurice Quinlivan TD – Sinn Féin
Cllr Daniel Butler – Fine Gael
Brian Leddin TD – Green Party
Cllr Conor Sheehan – Labour
Cllr Elisa O’Donovan – Social Democrats
Cllr Frankie Daly – Independent
Ruairí Fahy – People Before Profit
Sarah Beasley – Aontú
Dr Laura Keyes – An Rabharta Glas
Caitríona Ní Chaitháin – Socialist Party
Gerben Uunk – Party for Animal Welfare
Colm O’Móráin – Independent
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