The only thing worse than the local councillors around here are the over paid council executive who have come up with all manner of ridiculous ideas to waste money in recents years. The only good thing the councillors have done was to put a block on some of them. I dread to think what will happen now there’s no one to keep them on the leash.

Why did a country this size ever need 3 layers of government anyway?

i agree now let us get rid of the senate. all of these hanger ons . now look at what bert brian are all getting and what the have done to our country

Geographically it’s smaller than the rest of the country, more people live in an area but they would have far more shared issues ie. priory hall

Should councillors be elected based on geographical area instead?

There is no Dublin vs. Country thing ….. That match was abandoned when the government got elected. Dublin has evidently received a bye for the foreseeable future.

It is not Dublin V’s country. We should be looking at Ireland vs corrupt traitors and thieves like FF who view this state as a private piggy bank for themselves and their friends.

We should make it very clear to the current Govt. that if they turn in to a new FF that they will be destroyed as a party like the last bunch of criminals were in Feb. 11.

How you bring FF into this I don’t know …… BORING !!!!!

Bilderburg came up with idea now they have sowing up the country ..are we ment to vote on a change that big in our country?

Exactly, because of inspection and enforcement.

Emmet your not comparing like with like, the UK system as I understand it incorporates the local authority functions as we have here but in addition government departments such as health, education and social services are also within the remit of the council. This is the way it is in Northern Ireland, pretty sure it is also the way across the rest of the UK.

Emmet, planning is part of the overhaul because the bill will implement some of the Mahon tribunal recommendation to curb the power of local councillors with regard to overturning planning decisions.

I had concerns about democratic deficit at local level too, but if you read the content of the document, the town councils are effectively replaced by district councils. That means that everyone has access to that level, regardless of whether they live in a town that has historically had a council or not. The district councillors also sit on the county council.

I have a slight concern about potential disparities in the number of voters per councillor on that system, but it does at least still leave a very local tier of decision making.

Chris, I actually agree with both you and the reforms being implemented for local government. I’m just slightly concerned that all these reforms for governance are not being done on a coordinated basis taking the entire system into consideration. The whole system, both local and national, needs reform.

Was thinking exactly that Michael.

Need that to happen also. Not a case of either or.

Spot on. This is a ridiculous idea, exactly the opposite of what we need. Continuing FG policy of centralising power in the hands of a chamber which is ill equipped to make best use of it.

The idiots in the chamber rely on getting the credit for last-minute pothole-filling in their localities in order to get re-elected. This current shower definetely cant risk upstart councilors stealing their thunder in the parish.

Michael

Why can’t you give credit where it is due. Local Government will stay completely local but instead of having an Urban Council and a County Council you will have one with higher numbers in the electorate. The duplication of services will also cease . Why would you knock it unless you are merely disguising your membership of a Party that is not in Government and need to knock everything.

of I remember rightly they have started doing that too. there will be less seats in the next election to the dail

I completely agree with this decision. way too many councils and councillors.

Are you serious, the Dail is small potatoes, yeah trim a few out but who cares, Waste in local Government is phenomenal. It is definitely a move it the right direction, but a country of this size and population only needs around 8 properly organised self-financing local authorities that are directly elected and have much more power than they do now, I agree with the comment that power should shift from the centre but it is madness to think we need more CC to do that. We need to take clientelism out of Irish politics by letting CC provide for and make decision that are best for their communities . TD should have no role in any such matters they should be exclusively focused on national matter but then you would really see how useless many of them are. They real question is what happens all the folks whose job are now effectively redundant , no one wants to hear of job losses but I don’t want made up , ineffective roles in the new bodies either . Time for courage of conviction

There is nothing in this proposal about decreasing the power of local councils and transferring it to the Oireachtas. It’s simply a matter of decreasing the numbers of councils and retaining the existing powers in the remaining local councils.
Straw-man argument here guys.

@Paddy

It’s pretty safe to say I’m not affiliated with any political party. I agree that streamlining is exactly what needs to be done, but right now there are too many panderers and its costing us a fortune for an inefficient service.

I could propose thst we privatise a lot of local govt services, but then people will accuse me of wanting greedy rich people to get richer. People want it both ways

Cake and eating it is the way of the world I guess

We need to be careful before we reduce the Dail by too much because unless we also change our electoral system, reducing the number of TDs will discriminate more against smaller parties and independents.

Some people might be happy with that but it potentially means less opposition voices in what will be our only national elected body, if the Seanad is also abolished.

Yes that worked well for rezoning and planning, didn’t it!

Well said Michael. Someone who knows what they are talking about.

This has nothing to do with city status. One authority is more than sufficient to look after Waterford city and county. I believe the same is happening with Limerick. Limerick or Waterford will not cease to be cities!

Not disputing that waterford needs to amalgamate but under Irish law a city needs a city council. This is the oldest city in Ireland or at least was up until a few hours ago. Historical city status is bullshit, that’s desperation stuff like hogans own home town.
Waterford has taken a battering, when I was growing up Galway was a town till 85. Why keep theirs? What’s so special about Galway? Seems to get a disproportionate of jobs compared to this city and region.

Waterford should keep its city status and its own council.
Also its hard enough to get the city or county council to do anything what will it be like if there is just one authority? Not any better thats for sure.

No city status is going to be revoked. Just not going to happen. Why you even think that is unfathomable.

Realistically this is just a designation status and can be addressed in the bill as to what constitutes a city. Limerick’s councils are being amalgamated as well and nobody is suggesting that Limerick is no longer a city. It will be the same for Waterford. I just don’t understand why Cork and Galway aren’t having the same thing done. Neither has the population to justify two councils.

Galway has been a city since 1484. The Corporation was restored in 1935. Including the students and parts of the county that are now, for all intensive purposes, part of the city you have 100,000 people.

Galway is a huge county, with very diverse populations, and many large towns (Ballinasloe, Tuam, Clifden, Loughrea, Claregalway etc…). The city is also very large and acts as the regional capital for Connacht, not just Galway county.
Waterford is a very small county and only has a couple of towns (Tramore, Dungarvan).

I guess that is the reason why Galway (and also Cork another very large county with a city which acts as a regional capital) is having two councils.

That said I think that we could make do with far fewer regional bodies, with more power. I would like to see the civil services reformed first though so that competent people are promoted over those who are there the longest.

Rubbish! Waterford will still be a city. It’s council however will now be responsible for the city and county.

If the City council is taken from it how will it remain a city

The targeted voluntary redundancy scheme should see an estimated saving of €45m per year from 500 redundancies. €78.8 million has been saved in procurement costs since 2010. According to the plan that was announced future savings will be made through procurement, debt collection measures and standardisation of business processes across the sector nationally to streamline efficiency.
I really wish people would educate themselves on the facts before they post.

County Councils are over staffed in the management levels but once again if there is job losses it will frontline staff

I don’t get your comment. Anyone can still participate, by running and getting elected.

But equally there is an issue if there is too much representation in certain areas and too little in other areas, see areas in Leitrim and Dublin. These proposals seem to counter that.

It’s not about a citizens right to stand to be elected, it is about a citizens right to participate in the decision making process…

Is there going to be more or less power for the citizens in this structure??

In a representative democracy (as we have now) the “elected representatives” do what they think is right because they have been elected to represent “the people”. They don’t usually consult their electorate and often take the decisions in their own interests.

In a participative democracy the citizens are genuinely involved in the decisions that affect their lives, through local voting systems etc…. which I feel is what we should be aiming for in a democratic society.

100% agree with you Wayne. 10 regional councils will strong local decision making powers and strong oversight on their spending would be the way to go.

Nevertheless at least this is a start in that direction. We’re down to 31 councils now. At a later stage another minister may be able to reduce further.

This system works extremely well, and prevents “fat cats” syndrome!

Typical culchie “us vs Dublin” attitude.

Dublin had it’s share of Councillors cut because of this. Balbriggan lost at least one town councillor that I know off the top of my head

Dublin contains approximately 28% of the population but will have 4 out of 31 (about 13%) of the councils.

Yeah, over €100 million a year is nothing. Let’s just close lots of hospitals instead, that’s much easier.

The Free State proceeded with an identical local government system as was there before so the point still stands.

Countries of our size would actually have on average more representatives at all levels that we do.

The problem here is that no one holds people/politicians to account.