The €6m joke behind Limerick City of Culture

Why didn’t Michael Noonan just throw €6 million at his native city? He could have got somebody like Patricia Ryan to rebrand the city, going forward, adding value as she went, all the way to a performance-related bonus.

There might even have been a role for Pat Cox, ambassador at large for the city.

Cox could have featured on a billboard poster campaign. “Hi, I’m Pat, politician extraordinaire. Not everybody in Limerick is like me”. Why not? Noonan’s predecessor, Charlie McCreevy would have done something just like that.