O'Dea and Limerick
O'Dea is highly identified with his native Limerick. Three main issues have dominated his recent pronouncements on Limerick: Shannon Airport, Dell and gangland crime.
In August 2007 he broke ranks with Cabinet colleagues to speak out against Aer Lingus's decision to cease London Heathrow Airport flights from Shannon.
In December 2008 O'Dea and Tánaiste, Mary Coughlan flew to Dell's Corporate HQ in Texas in a last-ditch and ultimately futile attempt to stop the closure of Dell's manufacturing plant in Raheen, Limerick. Manufacturing was moved to Poland with the loss of about two thirds of the jobs at Dell's Limerick operation.
The slaying of two wholly innocent men in Limerick within months of each other: Shane Geoghegan and Roy Collins increased pressure on O'Dea locally, as a member of the Cabinet, to secure changes to the law and greater resources to tackle Limerick city's gangland crime.
On 5 February 2010, O'Dea announced that the Government would not deliver its commitments to fund the Limerick Regeneration project. The €1.7bn funds (between 2009 and 2018) promised by the Government will no longer be delivered.
Read more about this topic: Willie O'Dea
Famous quotes containing the word limerick:
“Galway is a blackguard place,
To Cork I give my curse,
Tralee is bad enough,
But Limerick is worse.
Which is worst I cannot tell,
They’re everyone so filthy,
But of the towns which I have seen
Worst luck to Clonakilty.”
—Anonymous. “Clonakilty,” from Geoffrey Grigson’s Faber Book of Epigrams and Epitaphs, Faber & Faber (1977)