Should Waterford City and County councils merge?

dayshah

I heard that Limerick City and County councils are merging. In total they have a population of about 186,000, much more than the Déise's 100,000.

Is it really justified in having 2 councils? I'm sure there could be some savings by merging.

(Also I think the boards city and county forums should merge, but I don't know in what forum to post that suggestion)

Mr Ed

absolutely, after all we are a small country. Why do we need two separate councils? The same goes for most other counties.

Finnbar01

Yep, they should and we should also reduce the number of councillors by 50%.

fricatus

Yes, they should be merged.

robtri

yes to both suggestions...

BBM77

I would be strongly against Waterford city and county councils merging. I think it would benefit the county only and be damaging to the city. The city council has a strong rate base and the county has a weak rate base, resources would in reality be removed from the city to the county and little if anything coming in the other direction. Also for the city to develop properly and with purpose it needs an authority that is fully focused on the city. Finally Waterford city and county has absolute no history as a single entity. I really think that Waterford city would lose part of its sole and character if it became part of a county wide authority.

mike65

Yahoos from the Comeraghs having a say in the City? :eek:

gman2k

Ballybrickenman wrote: »

I would be strongly against Waterford city and county councils merging. I think it would benefit the county only and be damaging to the city. The city council has a strong rate base and the county has a weak rate base, resources would in reality be removed from the city to the county and little if anything coming in the other direction. Also for the city to develop properly and with purpose it needs an authority that is fully focused on the city. Finally Waterford city and county has absolute no history as a single entity. I really think that Waterford city would lose part of its sole and character if it became part of a county wide authority.

I strongly disagree with all your comments.
In fact there should be just one 'local' authority for the entire SE region.
The current model has failed completely and is stuffed to the gills with overpaid incompetent jobsworths. The local businesses which actually generate real jobs and taxes are being bled dry to pay for overpaid directors, expensive council buildings and replicated services in every area. Businesses are being forced to pay extortionate rates to pay for non existent services in many instances.

Of course Turkeys don't vote for Christmas, so we won't see any progress in this area anytime soon.
The easier solution is of course to impose property taxes, water charges, septic tank tax etc, without reducing the actual cost of providing a proper fit for purpose local authority.
Your comments are farcical about weak and strong rate bases. This is one, small country by population standards, and such it is beyond high time we should have efficient service providers. To promote and differentiate between Waterford County and City when there is such small populations involved is comical. This country is heading towards one quarter of a Trillion sovereign debt, and yet some people think we need LAs on every street corner/ crossroads.
The status quo model needs to be disbanded ASAP, not prolonged due to nonsensical diarrhea such as "would lose part of its sole (sic) and character"
The only thing that is being lost is jobs, young people to enforced emigration, the aged and sick people living curtailed lives, special needs teachers etc etc etc.

The coffee; wake up and smell it.

BBM77

gman2k wrote: »

I strongly disagree with all your comments.
In fact there should be just one 'local' authority for the entire SE region.
The current model has failed completely and is stuffed to the gills with overpaid incompetent jobsworths. The local businesses which actually generate real jobs and taxes are being bled dry to pay for overpaid directors, expensive council buildings and replicated services in every area. Businesses are being forced to pay extortionate rates to pay for non existent services in many instances.

Of course Turkeys don't vote for Christmas, so we won't see any progress in this area anytime soon.
The easier solution is of course to impose property taxes, water charges, septic tank tax etc, without reducing the actual cost of providing a proper fit for purpose local authority.
Your comments are farcical about weak and strong rate bases. This is one, small country by population standards, and such it is beyond high time we should have efficient service providers. To promote and differentiate between Waterford County and City when there is such small populations involved is comical. This country is heading towards one quarter of a Trillion sovereign debt, and yet some people think we need LAs on every street corner/ crossroads.
The status quo model needs to be disbanded ASAP, not prolonged due to nonsensical diarrhea such as "would lose part of its sole (sic) and character"
The only thing that is being lost is jobs, young people to enforced emigration, the aged and sick people living curtailed lives, special needs teachers etc etc etc.

The coffee; wake up and smell it.

Firstly my comments about rate bases are certainly not farcical and to be honest your accretion that they are shows you have little knowledge of the topic. Of course we should have better services but if you think that merging authorities is going to achieve it…well I don’t see it. Also I don’t agree that the city council has failed the city. Why is saying words like sole and character are “nonsensical diarrhea”, are you trying to say Waterford has none. To say that to “differentiate between Waterford County and City…is comical” is just ridiculous, have you any knowledge of the history of Waterford.

At the end of the day I am from and live in Waterford city, I have heard this merger suggestion before, there has been threads here before about the suggestion and I have yet to see a reasonable benefit suggested for the city.

wellboytoo

I would agree but would also think that the county boundary's should be broken through as well, Waterford south Tipp , south Kilkenny and some of Wexford make a natural area for one authority, that would save millions and could function just as effectively and better than what is there at the moment, the chances of that happening are nil with Phil Hogan in charge, as a staunch KK man he would never even consider it.

hardybuck

Don't forget there is also the South East Regional Authority, of which I think John Cummins is Chairman of. Seems like a bit of a waste of money to me, you'd wonder would anyone notice if they weren't there.

I think Waterford City probably suffered from poor leadership in the past, but I've got faith in the currenty City Manager Michael Walsh, who ironically is from Ballyduff Upper. There have been some really good projects both completed and planned to take place since he has taken office.

I would be more in favour of abolishing town councils like Lismore, Dungarvan, Tramore etc.

Yes Boss

Absolutely - You might then see a balance of development/maintenance across the County, rather than it been concentrated in Dungarvan 9the West of the County).

Deise Hurler

Ballybrickenman - are u a Waterford city councilor.

Little need for 2 council's for 100,000 people.
We have way two many councilor's costing the taxpayer a fortune.
If we have to lose thousands of teachers, special needs assistant's, guards and nurses, why shouldn't we cut down on the amount of councilor's.

But as gman2k said ' Turkeys don't vote for Christmas' and none of our councilor's are going to vote against cutting their numbers and their income.

gman2k

For anyone who doesn't know, here is the list of the local authorities in Ireland
http://www.environ.ie/en/LocalGovernment/LocalGovernmentAdministration/LocalAuthorities/
If these were amalgamated into 4/5 different authorities, imagine the cost savings......
HR could be run from just one location,
One Planning processing office
Motor tax system is a bureaucratic behemoth, do we need people employed in every county with expensive offices to boot?

The list of waste and sloth is incredible, for example - Kildare County Council employees get days off to go to the horse racing............

If all the waste was eliminated, people who are not doing a job made redundant, there would be no need for new taxes on peoples homes.

Time for benchmarking in reverse.

merlante

I think that urban and rural counties merging is a bad idea. I think there are a lot of people that are so eager to jump on the rationalisation/efficiencies/cost savings band wagon (and in many cases view "the country" as being 100% rural anyway) that they aren't bothered thinking this through.

I have no problem merging rural counties that are adjacent to each other. You could make a rule that all rural counties must be greater than 120K or something like that. Where I have a problem is merging a county council and a city council, which provide services for two completely different demographic profiles.

The trend everywhere is for giving urban areas more autonomy, to allow them to grow and compete internationally as centres of enterprise, tourism, education, etc. Rural areas -- GAA colours aside -- are relatively homogenous in the services that must be provided and the type of population and geographic spread. A mixed urban-rural council would be involved in a permanent tug of war between the city and county. First against the wall would be balanced development and planning, with well to do suburbanites siding with the county to move services to edge of cities, with all of the resultant consequences. Maybe it could be done properly in specific cases, but it could also be disastrous.

The other thing is that it is very difficult to measure how efficient a city is in its service provision when they are combined with the surrounding county. At the moment we can compare Limerick, Galway and Waterford over a whole range of areas. Many statistics would/will be skewed after the merger. In Limerick the overall problem that part of the city will still be in another council (Co. Clare) of course still won't be addressed at all. Waterford is in the same situation regarding Co. Kilkenny.

In my opinion, the following would be much better: a) Dublin should have a metropolitan council covering the urban area like London, b) Cork should have a normal council covering the urban area of the city with some room for expansion, c) Limerick, Waterford and Galway should have councils containing the city and surrounding hinterland (well within the pull of the city <10 miles away) to allow for expansion and to boost the population of the council, d) sensible mergers along regional lines should occur between adjacent counties to bring rural councils to a similar level of population to each other. Co. Cork (rural) should probably be divided in two. All this would result in a net reduction in the number of councils and prioritise the development of the state's cities. The traditional county boundaries should be retained for cultural/geographic purposes but should be made obsolete for administrative purposes just like Dáil constituencies are now.

I find it disappointing that people will jump on any merger on the basis of turfing out jobsworths. If these kind of ad-hoc mergers are allowed to occur over the country then what do we need a department for the environment and local government for? What about planning for the future? Short termism is something we need to get away from in this country.

The 'We the citizens' events held around the country found that the majority of citizens want stronger local government. That does not mean waste and inefficiency, it means empowering local people to make local decisions where appropriate. Local councils can be made accountable and can be ideal institutions for citizen participation if they are reformed and empowered. So councils aren't all bad by any means (Waterford city council are doing amazing things at the moment, for example) but like the Seanad, they need to be reformed. (We can hardly say that the central government looks after the pounds any better than local communities would look after the pence imho!)

kkdela6

What is ridiculous is that i live ten minutes drive from the city centre, but since im part of waterford 'county' council my civic offices are in dungarvan which is over an hours drive!

Silverado

Merging is a good concept and an even greater concept would be to give Waterford city a wider periphery into Kilkenny. It is ridiculous to see the planning which went on in Ferrybank with Waterford City objecting to Kilkenny Co. Co. re the "shopping centre" and losing to Bord Pleanala. A city needs full control of its entire area to run it properly.

Another problem with the system as it is just now is that it has a very pronounced bias towards Dungarvan and the West county, the East of the county is largely forgotten. Just look at Waterford Co. Co. website, there is very little mention of Tramore or the East county. News, events etc. are all focused at Dungarvan and west even though according to the last census figures Tramore has a bigger population than Dungarvan and Dunmore East come third in size after Dungarvan.

This attitude is reflected in many facets of Co. Council service and would be even worse but for some new very hard working Councilllors in the East county.

BBM77

Deise Hurler wrote: »

Ballybrickenman - are u a Waterford city councilor.

Little need for 2 council's for 100,000 people.
We have way two many councilor's costing the taxpayer a fortune.
If we have to lose thousands of teachers, special needs assistant's, guards and nurses, why shouldn't we cut down on the amount of councilor's.

But as gman2k said ' Turkeys don't vote for Christmas' and none of our councilor's are going to vote against cutting their numbers and their income.

No, I am not a city councillor and I have absolutely no connections with a city councillor or the city council itself.

merlante

Ballybrickenman wrote: »

No, I am not a city councillor and I have absolutely no connections with a city councillor or the city council itself.

I love this assumption that everyone who has a slightly different opinion is automatically a vested interest...

200motels

gman2k wrote: »

I strongly disagree with all your comments.
In fact there should be just one 'local' authority for the entire SE region.
The current model has failed completely and is stuffed to the gills with overpaid incompetent jobsworths. The local businesses which actually generate real jobs and taxes are being bled dry to pay for overpaid directors, expensive council buildings and replicated services in every area. Businesses are being forced to pay extortionate rates to pay for non existent services in many instances.

Of course Turkeys don't vote for Christmas, so we won't see any progress in this area anytime soon.
The easier solution is of course to impose property taxes, water charges, septic tank tax etc, without reducing the actual cost of providing a proper fit for purpose local authority.
Your comments are farcical about weak and strong rate bases. This is one, small country by population standards, and such it is beyond high time we should have efficient service providers. To promote and differentiate between Waterford County and City when there is such small populations involved is comical. This country is heading towards one quarter of a Trillion sovereign debt, and yet some people think we need LAs on every street corner/ crossroads.
The status quo model needs to be disbanded ASAP, not prolonged due to nonsensical diarrhea such as "would lose part of its sole (sic) and character"
The only thing that is being lost is jobs, young people to enforced emigration, the aged and sick people living curtailed lives, special needs teachers etc etc etc.

The coffee; wake up and smell it.

+1

Finnbar01

merlante wrote: »

I love this assumption that everyone who has a slightly different opinion is automatically a vested interest...

We all have a vested interest. My vested interest is that I want the government to save money and tax me less and borrow less. Therefore merge councils.

romulus augustulus

merlante wrote: »

I think that urban and rural counties merging is a bad idea. I think there are a lot of people that are so eager to jump on the rationalisation/efficiencies/cost savings band wagon (and in many cases view "the country" as being 100% rural anyway) that they aren't bothered thinking this through.

I have no problem merging rural counties that are adjacent to each other. You could make a rule that all rural counties must be greater than 120K or something like that. Where I have a problem is merging a county council and a city council, which provide services for two completely different demographic profiles.

The trend everywhere is for giving urban areas more autonomy, to allow them to grow and compete internationally as centres of enterprise, tourism, education, etc. Rural areas -- GAA colours aside -- are relatively homogenous in the services that must be provided and the type of population and geographic spread. A mixed urban-rural council would be involved in a permanent tug of war between the city and county. First against the wall would be balanced development and planning, with well to do suburbanites siding with the county to move services to edge of cities, with all of the resultant consequences. Maybe it could be done properly in specific cases, but it could also be disastrous.

The other thing is that it is very difficult to measure how efficient a city is in its service provision when they are combined with the surrounding county. At the moment we can compare Limerick, Galway and Waterford over a whole range of areas. Many statistics would/will be skewed after the merger. In Limerick the overall problem that part of the city will still be in another council (Co. Clare) of course still won't be addressed at all. Waterford is in the same situation regarding Co. Kilkenny.

In my opinion, the following would be much better: a) Dublin should have a metropolitan council covering the urban area like London, b) Cork should have a normal council covering the urban area of the city with some room for expansion, c) Limerick, Waterford and Galway should have councils containing the city and surrounding hinterland (well within the pull of the city <10 miles away) to allow for expansion and to boost the population of the council, d) sensible mergers along regional lines should occur between adjacent counties to bring rural councils to a similar level of population to each other. Co. Cork (rural) should probably be divided in two. All this would result in a net reduction in the number of councils and prioritise the development of the state's cities. The traditional county boundaries should be retained for cultural/geographic purposes but should be made obsolete for administrative purposes just like Dáil constituencies are now.

I find it disappointing that people will jump on any merger on the basis of turfing out jobsworths. If these kind of ad-hoc mergers are allowed to occur over the country then what do we need a department for the environment and local government for? What about planning for the future? Short termism is something we need to get away from in this country.

The 'We the citizens' events held around the country found that the majority of citizens want stronger local government. That does not mean waste and inefficiency, it means empowering local people to make local decisions where appropriate. Local councils can be made accountable and can be ideal institutions for citizen participation if they are reformed and empowered. So councils aren't all bad by any means (Waterford city council are doing amazing things at the moment, for example) but like the Seanad, they need to be reformed. (We can hardly say that the central government looks after the pounds any better than local communities would look after the pence imho!)

Good post. Rather than a piecemeal bit by bit tidy up here and there(e.g.merging the two Waterford Councils) the entire system needs a thorough redesign, whether using Merlante's suggestion or larger regional councils. The county divisions date back centuries and are no longer an efficient way of administering the country. I'm from that part of South Kilkenny that is close to Waterford and I'm against the switch of a small part of KK to Waterford City, partly for simple reasons of local loyalty but also because such a change will make no meaningful improvement to local government. However, I don't think that too many will object to an overall redesign of local boundaries which retains the old county borders for sporting/cultural purposes, but allows a more logical, cost-effective and rational administrative division of the country.

deise go deo

mike65 wrote: »

Yahoos from the Comeraghs having a say in the City? :eek:

Yahoos from the city having a say in the Comeraghs!!!:eek::mad:

dayshah

Tipp north and south are to be merged. Waterford is next in Phil Hogans sights.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0727/1224301448118.html

Yes Boss

dayshah wrote: »

Tipp north and south are to be merged. Waterford is next in Phil Hogans sights.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0727/1224301448118.html

A great idea. It will bring a lot of clarity to Waterford.

fuzzy dunlop

romulus augustulus wrote: »

Good post. Rather than a piecemeal bit by bit tidy up here and there(e.g.merging the two Waterford Councils) the entire system needs a thorough redesign, whether using Merlante's suggestion or larger regional councils. The county divisions date back centuries and are no longer an efficient way of administering the country. I'm from that part of South Kilkenny that is close to Waterford and I'm against the switch of a small part of KK to Waterford City, partly for simple reasons of local loyalty but also because such a change will make no meaningful improvement to local government. However, I don't think that too many will object to an overall redesign of local boundaries which retains the old county borders for sporting/cultural purposes, but allows a more logical, cost-effective and rational administrative division of the country.

Exactly we have a once in a lifetime chance of a radical reform of local government.This is just a pure lazy solution from the Government.It's amazing that we had more reform with less fuss under the Brits than we did since we gained independence. It begs the question,what kind of mentality we have as a people?

Finnbar01

Folks, just read a letter in Waterford Today in relation to merging councils.

The letter writer was against it for two reasons.

1. If Waterford goes ahead with this, just like Limerick, while Galway, Cork and Dublin do not, he believes that 'This will cement the ''unofficial'' government policy of favouring those three cities for state investment and FDI.....

2. South Tipperary has a more interdependent relationship with Waterford than North Tipperary. If North T and South T unify, this could have a detetrimental effect on the regional cohesion, if the united Tipperary becomes part of the mid west.

I think he's after raising some good points there.

Silverado

romulus augustulus wrote: »

Good post. Rather than a piecemeal bit by bit tidy up here and there(e.g.merging the two Waterford Councils) the entire system needs a thorough redesign, whether using Merlante's suggestion or larger regional councils. The county divisions date back centuries and are no longer an efficient way of administering the country. I'm from that part of South Kilkenny that is close to Waterford and I'm against the switch of a small part of KK to Waterford City, partly for simple reasons of local loyalty but also because such a change will make no meaningful improvement to local government. However, I don't think that too many will object to an overall redesign of local boundaries which retains the old county borders for sporting/cultural purposes, but allows a more logical, cost-effective and rational administrative division of the country.

Why then are you so against the suggestion of Waterford City taking in a "beltway" around the urban part of South Kilkenny which is effectively part of the City, i.e. Newrath, Rathculliheen etc. Obviously you don't feel the tomfoolery with the two unopened shopping centres in your area would ever happen again.

rasper

long overdue , however much like the mearging of the health boards no jobs will be redundant

merlante

Finnbar01 wrote: »

Folks, just read a letter in Waterford Today in relation to merging councils.

The letter writer was against it for two reasons.

1. If Waterford goes ahead with this, just like Limerick, while Galway, Cork and Dublin do not, he believes that 'This will cement the ''unofficial'' government policy of favouring those three cities for state investment and FDI.....

2. South Tipperary has a more interdependent relationship with Waterford than North Tipperary. If North T and South T unify, this could have a detetrimental effect on the regional cohesion, if the united Tipperary becomes part of the mid west.

I think he's after raising some good points there.

I think whatever happens, two divisions should be preserved:
1. Urban-rural split.
2. Regional split.

Limerick violates the first and Tipperary the second. This in my view is worse than doing nothing, and "rationalisation" for all the wrong reasons. Rationalisation, in fact, along GAA lines and not along the lines of good planning.

Urban areas are completely different from rural areas, and uniting the two Tipperary counties will produce a county spanning two NUTS 3 regions with two regional authorities, supplying elected representatives to both.

There is a great opportunity for productive and sensible rationalisation here based on good planning as I suggested in an earlier post.

Speaking from a sheerly Waterford point of view, the two councils would be crazy to merge. Co. Waterford should be merging with Tipperary south, not with Waterford city, and Waterford city should not want to run a large rural hinterland. Where is the efficiency of that? All you're going to get is a bunch of bickering representatives fighting turf wars. Is the councillor from Tallow really going to give a damn about the finer points of city planning, pedestrianisation, urban regeneration, etc. in inner city Waterford, and do Waterford city councillors really have to care about all of the potholes and ditches that need fixing the length and breadth of the county. Not to mention the fact that urban and rural politics are utterly different. I can imagine situations where councillors from the city would be divided by politics and be overwhelmed by county councillors pushing a common agenda. You only have to look at the constant struggle over city boundaries as counties become addicted to cash generated on the periphery of cities; clearly there is a tradition of spending this cash elsewhere.

charlemont

Ballybrickenman wrote: »

I would be strongly against Waterford city and county councils merging. I think it would benefit the county only and be damaging to the city. The city council has a strong rate base and the county has a weak rate base, resources would in reality be removed from the city to the county and little if anything coming in the other direction. Also for the city to develop properly and with purpose it needs an authority that is fully focused on the city. Finally Waterford city and county has absolute no history as a single entity. I really think that Waterford city would lose part of its sole and character if it became part of a county wide authority.

Well said.