Limerick’s rugby image ‘too narrow for US investors’

A BUSINESS leader has expressed concern at the marketing of Limerick as a rugby city.

Harry Fehily, president of the city’s Chamber of Commerce said Limerick relies on the US for foreign direct investment (FDI) and rugby was not widely supported in the US as it was not a mainstream sport.

Mr Fehily, a managing partner at the legal firm Holmes O’Malley Sexton, said Limerick needed to expand its image.

He said: “Unfortunately very few people outside Ireland, the UK, France, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia are interested in rugby at all. It is played to a small degree in the US, where most of our FDI comes from.”

The focus for development, he suggested, should be on Limerick’s strong cultural foundations.

Mr Fehily said: “Limerick is home to the Irish Chamber Orchestra, the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, the Academy of Performing Arts, Hunt Museum, Belltable Arts Centre and the birth place of Kate O’Brien, Bill Whelan, Richard Harris, Tom Ryan and John Shinners.”

Mr Fehily said Limerick business also faces problems with rail connections to Dublin as the service was neither quick nor frequent enough.

There was also a connectivity problem, he said, in getting in and out of the region to foreign destinations due to downgrading of Shannon.

“The airport now urgently needs an autonomous board answerable to nobody but its shareholders. It is not until that change happens that the airport will begin to move forward,” Mr Fehily said.

The Chamber of Commerce president said change requires leadership, creativity and innovation: “But who is going to bring about the change? I have come to the conclusion that this change must come from within. We cannot rely on our existing political establishment to deliver it.”