Sir, – Dublin City Council has confirmed that the cost of implementing the Government’s plan to increase the number of councillors in Dublin City Council will cost more than €330,000 annually (“Adding 50 councillors for Dublin to cost €1m”, Colin Gleeson, Home News, February 6th), and this figure does not include the “initial set-up”. Is this how local taxes, eg household charges will be spent?
Currently 52 city councillors, a large number of whom were co-opted, claim to have little power. Adding 11 more at great expense to this already powerless group surely is not the answer.
This exercise will do nothing to restore confidence in the political system at local and national level and this at a time when cynicism is widespread and our cherished democracy is daily being eroded at an ever increasing pace. – Yours, etc,