Local Government Reform - Mayo Effect?

finisklin

Hi all,

see local news links on this here and here.

Will this mean more accountability? Will the CEO be more accountable than he is now? The other change is taking away the right of councillors to veto planning decisions/recommendations by the council management and for local authorities to set the property tax rates, from here.

At least the town councils are to be done away with and farewell to all our industrious, hard working town councillors.:D

nuac

I am disappointed at the proposed abolition of the Town Councils. A good TC is important to the development of a town. Towns with effective TCs are doing better than others

E.g. in Westport there has always been good cooperation between the Town Council, community groups and other development organisations.

The series of awards won, success in Tidy Towns Competitions, expansion of tourism and industry speaks for itself. According to Irish Times poll, best town in which to live etc

Councillors give close attention to the making of the Town Development Plan. The TC employ a full time architect to assist in supervising of planning issues. afaik smallest town in country to do so.

If the TC functions are merged into a larger rural area, the development of the town would lose focus and momentum.

yop

Does sound like a bad thing then, I think I read in the Mayo news that the TC spend was something like 50k per year on the councillors themselves, which isnt bad in the grand scheme.
That said if every single town saves us 420m then thats a serious amount of euros.

I still think we have too many politicians in the Dail who spend too much of their time on local issues, if they were removed totally from the dail into a better structured local government with a 10th of the TD's then it would suit better.

finisklin

nuac wrote: »

I am disappointed at the proposed abolition of the Town Councils. A good TC is important to the development of a town. Towns with effective TCs are doing better than others

E.g. in Westport there has always been good cooperation between the Town Council, community groups and other development organisations.

The series of awards won, success in Tidy Towns Competitions, expansion of tourism and industry speaks for itself. According to Irish Times poll, best town in which to live etc

Councillors give close attention to the making of the Town Development Plan. The TC employ a full time architect to assist in supervising of planning issues. afaik smallest town in country to do so.

If the TC functions are merged into a larger rural area, the development of the town would lose focus and momentum.

Fair point Nuac. Interesting contrast between Westport and Ballina TCs. Only thing is that the actual budget to progress the towns is miniscule (circa €1m per annum) in comparision with the budget for the county/electoral areas.

You can argue that the hinterland will be better integrated into the town as a result as opposed to the town losing focus on its own development.

It's not clear how the CEOs will be appointed. For example when Peter Hynes retires, is it the councillors that interview and appoint his successor or is it more senior civil/public servants?

finisklin

Eddie Hobbs has interesting spin in this article here, referencing county managers pay (Peter Hynes gross is €150k plus increments & allowances) as being more than European Prime Ministers.

Are we getting Merkel like quality for our buck with the associated accountability?:cool:

yop

finisklin wrote: »

Eddie Hobbs has interesting spin in this article here, referencing county managers pay (Peter Hynes gross is €150k plus increments & allowances) as being more than European Prime Ministers.

Are we getting Merkel like quality for our buck with the associated accountability?:cool:

150k per year!!! Bloody hell.

Irishgoatman

One problem that I can see is that when all of the counties income is centralised in the one county council, will the successful towns, such as Westport, be given priority when it comes to spending that money.

A Ballina councillor was on MidWest a few days ago raising this very point.
I believe that money raised by a town council should stay within that towns catchment area.