A chara, – I warmly welcome your editorial "Local government – a welcome rethink" (March 3rd).
As former a mayor of Kilkenny, whose first directly elected council met in 1231, I strongly objected to the abolition of our councils, dressed up as so-called reform in the Putting People First document. Former minister for the environment Phil Hogan, however, was not for turning.
The realities of this decision are only now becoming apparent, with falling budgets in our city and others as the reduced numbers of urban-based councillors are struggling in unwieldy “municipal districts”, in effect glorified sub-committees of our county councils. This is bad for our towns and cities, upon which the surrounding rural areas are hugely reliant for the provision of services and employment.
The facts that our neighbours in Britain have four layers of local government and that municipal government is the predominant form of local democracy in almost every developed democracy in the world mean we should now have a serious rethink.
I sincerely hope that the position adopted by Labour at the weekend will be taken up by others and I welcome the raising of the issue in Dáil Éireann this week. It would be my hope that 2014 will be the last year in which our city and our larger towns will fail to have their own directly elected and economically efficient local councils. – Is mise,
SEÁN Ó hARGÁIN,
Cnoc an Ghriannaigh,
Cathair Chill Chainnigh.