Cork City boundary extension

54and56

mire wrote: »

Your argument about 'duplication' is fantasy, and is the same as suggesting that we should merge all County Councils and have no local government. Are Cork and Kerry County Councils 'duplicating services'? If so, should we not merge them, get rid of local government altogether. I see nothing wrong with having local government at a much smaller scale than we do now.

You suggest we need to raise taxes to fund two councils! Why would we need to do that? There are two Councils already.

My argument is only fantasy if the law of economies of scale is suddenly disproved. Put the two together, cut out duplication, consolidate offices, streamline third party services and put the money saved towards actual services rather than bureaucracy and admin or better still, put the money saved towards lower property tax.

kub

Cut out duplication, by all means, usually in a commercial environment people are made redundant, this will not happen. Therefore there will be the exact same number of employees so lets drop that point.

the dark phantom

I'm coming round to the idea of a merger after reading the report.

StonyIron

It might actually make more sense to merge West Cork and Kerry and East Cork and Rural Waterford as do what's being proposed.

The historical counties make very little sense in terms of population or area distribution anyway.

If I were prioritising merging things in Ireland, I'd have been looking at actually unsustainable units like Leitrim and Roscommon

or easy merges like the Dublin County Councils.

blindsider

mire wrote: »

Press conference today in Cork. Not really sure that the library service should really be our benchmark to be honest. This is much bigger than that.

Manchester does not have 'one Council', this is a complete nonsense; it has a multitude of Councils governing the whole city region. With Manchester City Council at the centre. No one would argue that the Manchester City Council is abolished.

10/10 for mis-interpreting my meaning!

Greater Manchester has ca. 2.5m people. The city has ca. 520K people. If Manchester city council can efficiently run a city for that population, why can't one council run Cork city and county (ca. 515k population)?

Simplistic? Maybe. Worthy of serious debate? Absolutely - especially as the current shower have done little to cover themselves in glory!

Finally, I didn't say the library services should be our benchmark - merely that it was an obvious inefficiency. Perhaps that's a bit inconvenient for you?

mire

blindsider wrote: »

10/10 for mis-interpreting my meaning!

Greater Manchester has ca. 2.5m people. The city has ca. 520K people. If Manchester city council can efficiently run a city for that population, why can't one council run Cork city and county (ca. 515k population)?

Simplistic? Maybe. Worthy of serious debate? Absolutely - especially as the current shower have done little to cover themselves in glory!

Finally, I didn't say the library services should be our benchmark - merely that it was an obvious inefficiency. Perhaps that's a bit inconvenient for you?

You introduced the library service as a case. Not me. And it is a pretty poor reason for amalgamating local government. Not sure how it is 'an inefficiency'.

OK, Manchester City Council has legal, financial, political autonomy as a city. As does almost every city in Europe. None that I know are run as divisions of counties. The only cities that I know of that will have as few powers as Cork city will have are waterford and limerick. There are cities cross Europe from 5000 to 500000 that have autonomy. Are you saying that Manchester City Council's jurisdiction of 520,000 is the minimum acceptable size of urban government. What is your point? Others used Manchester inaccurately as an example of a city of 2.5 million that had a single governing structure. I pointed out the fallacy. More important, Manchester city council governs a city- not a county, with county towns, agriculture, coastline, forests, beaches, market towns, etc. The crude comparison is useless.

Can you name me one city in Europe that will have as few powers as Cork will have following amalgamation? That is run as a 'division' with no political leadership? Can you name one city that is advocating this?

Reputable Rog

mire wrote: »

You introduced the library service as a case. Not me. And it is a pretty poor reason for amalgamating local government. Not sure how it is 'an inefficiency'.

OK, Manchester City Council has legal, financial, political autonomy as a city. As does almost every city in Europe. None that I know are run as divisions of counties. The only cities that I know of that will have as few powers as Cork city will have are waterford and limerick. There are cities cross Europe from 5000 to 500000 that have autonomy. Are you saying that Manchester City Council's jurisdiction of 520,000 is the minimum acceptable size of urban government. What is your point? Others used Manchester inaccurately as an example of a city of 2.5 million that had a single governing structure. I pointed out the fallacy. More important, Manchester city council governs a city- not a county, with county towns, agriculture, coastline, forests, beaches, market towns, etc. The crude comparison is useless.

Can you name me one city in Europe that will have as few powers as Cork will have following amalgamation? That is run as a 'division' with no political leadership? Can you name one city that is advocating this?

Galway ?

54and56

kub wrote: »

Cut out duplication, by all means, usually in a commercial environment people are made redundant, this will not happen. Therefore there will be the exact same number of employees so lets drop that point.

What a hopeless way to think. Let's just lie down and accept bad practices and inefficiencies shall we? Thankfully there are people who challenge the status quo and shine the light on what we could do rather than throw the towel in.

I trust you're not a "Rebel" yourself then Kub?

Natural/voluntary retirements, reallocation to other services instead of hiring new people will over a number of years sort the situation out.

But perhaps we shouldn't even bother trying eh? :rolleyes:

KCAccidental

Je_suis_Jean wrote: »

Natural/voluntary retirements, reallocation to other services instead of hiring new people will over a number of years sort the situation out.

But perhaps we shouldn't even bother trying eh? :rolleyes:

that's been happening since 2008 anyways.

54and56

KCAccidental wrote: »

that's been happening since 2008 anyways.

And long may it continue. The more lean and efficient we are the more successful our economy and children's future will be.

The days of big inefficient government whether central or local are thankfully coming to an end and the sooner the better.

blindsider

mire wrote: »

You introduced the library service as a case. Not me. And it is a pretty poor reason for amalgamating local government. Not sure how it is 'an inefficiency'.

I've stopped reading.....

1 - of course I introduced the library service as an example. I didn't say it was the ONLY reason for amalgamation - it's an obvious duplication of a simple service in a relatively small area.


City..county...does it really matter? We are a small country with small cities and small populations - we don't need every big town to be autonomous, we need more efficient and effective control.

I don't think you'll understand this, so I won't reply to any more of your posts on this topic.


OK, Manchester City Council has legal, financial, political autonomy as a city. As does almost every city in Europe. None that I know are run as divisions of counties. The only cities that I know of that will have as few powers as Cork city will have are waterford and limerick. There are cities cross Europe from 5000 to 500000 that have autonomy. Are you saying that Manchester City Council's jurisdiction of 520,000 is the minimum acceptable size of urban government. What is your point? Others used Manchester inaccurately as an example of a city of 2.5 million that had a single governing structure. I pointed out the fallacy. More important, Manchester city council governs a city- not a county, with county towns, agriculture, coastline, forests, beaches, market towns, etc. The crude comparison is useless.

Can you name me one city in Europe that will have as few powers as Cork will have following amalgamation? That is run as a 'division' with no political leadership? Can you name one city that is advocating this?

Thanks for reading.

kub

Je_suis_Jean wrote: »

What a hopeless way to think. Let's just lie down and accept bad practices and inefficiencies shall we? Thankfully there are people who challenge the status quo and shine the light on what we could do rather than throw the towel in.

I trust you're not a "Rebel" yourself then Kub?

Natural/voluntary retirements, reallocation to other services instead of hiring new people will over a number of years sort the situation out.

But perhaps we shouldn't even bother trying eh? :rolleyes:

I was born and bred in Cork, I do not consider myself a 'rebel', I regard that as a GAA insular type saying.
As we are both aware unions have these councils wrapped up, therefore no one will loose their jobs now, certainly in the future, but not now.
As perhaps an example of this is the recent changes in Driver licensing, we used to get them renewed by County Council staff but not anymore, now it is done in an office off Copley Street by another State agency, now please correct me if i am wrong but did anyone in the council loose their jobs?

I wish they lived in the real world, unfortunately they don't.

54and56

kub wrote: »

I was born and bred in Cork, I do not consider myself a 'rebel', I regard that as a GAA insular type saying.
As we are both aware unions have these councils wrapped up, therefore no one will loose their jobs now, certainly in the future, but not now.
As perhaps an example of this is the recent changes in Driver licensing, we used to get them renewed by County Council staff but not anymore, now it is done in an office off Copley Street by another State agency, now please correct me if i am wrong but did anyone in the council loose their jobs?

I wish they lived in the real world, unfortunately they don't.

Slowly slowly catchy monkey. Retirements, reassigning staff etc all slims down government. It's just a waiting game. Be patient my friend :-)

lostinsuperfunk

Driver licencing was a good example of shared services - the County Council handled it for both City and County. It worked fine. Now it has been privatised and we have the "efficiency" of a near-invisible driver licencing office in Copley Street with no parking outside. Why should hard-working people in the council lose their jobs just because a government minister dreamed up an unnecessary privatisation wheeze?

This isn't about achieving "efficiencies", it's about the continued transfer of government power from local communities in Ireland, which has been an ongoing project of all FF and FG led administrations that I can remember. Centralisation does not necessarily lead to better services or lower costs, look at Irish Water for example. Several of the Swiss cantons have less than 100,000 population and have far more local powers than we do in Ireland.

54and56

lostinsuperfunk wrote: »

Driver licencing was a good example of shared services - the County Council handled it for both City and County. It worked fine. Now it has been privatised and we have the "efficiency" of a near-invisible driver licencing office in Copley Street with no parking outside. Why should hard-working people in the council lose their jobs just because a government minister dreamed up an unnecessary privatisation wheeze?

Because the hardworking privatised staff are more productive and offer a better service resulting in a lower tax burden on all of us. Win Win.

lostinsuperfunk wrote: »

This isn't about achieving "efficiencies", it's about the continued transfer of government power from local communities in Ireland, which has been an ongoing project of all FF and FG led administrations that I can remember.

The two parties you refer to have been consistently re-elected and one or other has always been in government since the formation of the state. Given their combined agenda is the "continued transfer of government power from local communities in Ireland" why do you think the very same local communities keep electing them to implement that agenda? :rolleyes:

lostinsuperfunk wrote: »

Centralisation does not necessarily lead to better services or lower costs, look at Irish Water for example.

Irish Water is an amalgamation of inefficient council departments and is a huge task. It will take years to turn the mess they are starting with into a streamlined and efficient organisation but they'll get there. Calling Irish Water a failure so early in it's phase of development is just silly.

lostinsuperfunk wrote: »

Several of the Swiss cantons have less than 100,000 population and have far more local powers than we do in Ireland.

Comparing the Swiss and Irish economies is comparing Apples and Oranges. It's easy to pick an example which suits your POV but you should make it a relevant example like e.g. the UK.

StonyIron

You have to ask yourself here is local government actually inefficient?

Has anyone actually measured this or, are they just accepting it as an untested fact?

In a lot of cases "inefficiency" is actually caused by lack of control over budgets. Centrally allocated "spend it it lose it" systems that cause local authorities to try and spend up to budgets, lack of fiscal autonomy etc etc

Then the other big issue is lack of accountability.
If local authorities were more directly accountable to an electorate, they would be more efficient.

We've an appointed, unelected executive who wields the power like the CEO of a company instead of a mayor. The city or county manager is almost like something they'd have in China, not a democracy.

The council itself is a powerless talking shop with powers even more limited than the European Parliament vs the commission.

Then because of the way the national electoral system works with multiple seats and sitting TDs in constant battle for attention, they behave like councillors.

Irish politics is about clientelism and in practice that means the TD aims to be a "fixer". The easiest and most obvious things to fix are local authority issues like potholes, street surfaces, street furniture, parks, lighting, graffiti issues etc etc

If you think stripping more power from local government and making councillors more remote and less accountable is going to help generate efficiency, you've no idea how government or human behaviour works.

This is centralisation and stripping out of local democracy by people who have no idea how to run a country.

They should be listening to the political scientists at UCC, all of whom were against this and for very logical reasons.

Instead, they're listening to the backbenchers, the non elected aspect of county hall and business lobbies who would probably like the country run by a board of directors instead of this pesky annoying democracy.

This move is utterly bizarre by comparison to any European or North American model. We are basically just destroying our cities.

Local Government here needs reform. Reform however is not about abolishing and centralising power.

It was the same with the Seanad. They didn't bother reforming it. The Seanad itself tried to reform 13 times! There are reports and reports and reports and the government ignored all of them then attempted to abolish it by referendum!

Removal of town councils was a total disgrace too. They should have been reformed and the large amorphous towns like Ballincollig and Carrigaline should have been setup with one.

We've no focus in towns here at all. No town hall, no mayor and people trying to replicate some of those functions with tidy towns committees!

Then we wonder why some towns fall apart or end up ugly looking.

You can have local administration of towns and cities without huge costs. The huge costs here are usually generated by lack of accountability, not too many councillors.

Incidentally, councillors are paid extremely little money. It's the layers of admin that are expensive.

You can merge back office services, things like fire brigades, library networks and do things like have joint tenders for outsourced or bought in services and goods.

Anyway. I give up on it. I think Ireland's politicians are clueless about good public administration. The fact that the media doesn't even seem to understand the problem, let alone provide coverage is just unbelievable too.

So go on, dump Cork City Council and I guarantee you : you'll have a big sprawling, badly served, unaccountable mess in 20 years time.

lostinsuperfunk

Because the hardworking privatised staff are more productive and offer a better service resulting in a lower tax burden on all of us. Win Win.

There's no evidence for this. It's just ideology. Maybe they are more productive, maybe they are not. What matters is the quality and cost of services provided to the communities. It doesn't matter to me whether I pay for the services through taxation or directly. Water services are not optional services.

Irish Water is an amalgamation of inefficient council departments and is a huge task. It will take years to turn the mess they are starting with into a streamlined and efficient organisation but they'll get there. Calling Irish Water a failure so early in it's phase of development is just silly.

Irish Water has wasted a huge amount of public and private money in its short life. Cork City and County Councils for the most part provided good quality water services despite chronic underfunding, which I would say was a deliberate strategy by government. I'm familiar with the former County Council's water and wastewater operations and they were not inefficient in my view. Setting up a risky private company borrowing money at expensive commercial rates (as opposed to the extremely low rates available to the Irish government) with dubious prospects of recovery through revenue, that sounds inefficient to me.
If you view Irish Water through some narrow libertarian lens of reducing the overall tax burden on people, then yes, it is a success. However, everyone needs water and we're going to pay more for it in the end due to the structural inefficiency of a bodged utility company and the inherent riskiness of the venture, which was undertaken for ideological rather than sound practical reasons.

It will take years to turn the mess they are starting with into a streamlined and efficient organisation but they'll get there.

I would tender, it has taken just months to turn multiple efficient organisations into one large complete mess. They have already gotten there

why do you think the very same local communities keep electing them to implement that agenda?

FF, FG and Labour get continually re-elected for multiple reasons. People do not re-elect them solely on their policies regarding local government.

Comparing the Swiss and Irish economies is comparing Apples and Oranges. It's easy to pick an example which suits your POV but you should make it a relevant example like e.g. the UK.

Ok, let's look at the UK. Large local authorities, similar in scale to the new merged County Council (e.g. Oxfordshire) but the local district councils have a lot more power than our Council Divisions. Oxford City Council is just a district council within Oxfordshire but it has power over planning, buildings, housing, leisure, parks and other areas.

StonyIron

Excellent city planning and services on the continent happen because of empowered, accountable, well resourced local government.

In most continental cities, local authorities have power over things like public transit and local aspects of policing. They often also run schools.

They work within budgets and often have their own tax incomes. These are negotiated as part of local elections.

We, for some odd reason, don't trust the peasants to run their own cities, towns and rural districts so, we don't grant them any autonomy.

Then we create big unaccountable QANGOs like CIE and wonder why they don't respond to local needs and why our bus services are light years behind a small French town, never mind a city.

Where you've accountability and local control, action will happen.

People in Ireland don't care about local government because the central government has removed so much power from it that it has become irrelevant to most people.
That's why election turnouts in local elections are poor, it's why people couldn't tell you who the mayor is of a city or county. They're a powerless figurehead without any control over public policy, so why would anyone care?

Meanwhile, all of your local services are basically being driven by an appointed, unelected chief executive of your council.

Also the Irish system causes the national parliament to be used as a council chamber and TDs to spend all their time focused on irrelevant local issues that have nothing to do with national government and should be handled by local councillors.

So, instead of debating something import and of national interest, they're demanding funds for public lighting schemes or ramps in Kerry or Limerick or whatever.

We need to get our heads around "local issue" vs "national issue". They're not the same thing and by constantly mixing them up we are causing very poor governance.

flo8s967qjh0nd

Talk of 'synergies' and 'savings' from the proponents of this merger have been clearly exposed as fanciful nonsense by the minority report produced by the only two professional researchers on the review group. Whilst it might be politically convenient to talk of savings, there is no international evidence for anything like the synergies being talked about (in very vague terms) by the likes of the mayor of county cork.
It will be a very brave government that seeks to implement this merger on the back of a divided review group, a city bitterly opposed to such a merger and a general election on the horizon. Labour and Fine Gael would be further decimated in the City should such a move be forced.
It's sad because this was an opportunity to final solve the boundary issue by a logical extension, one which has the overwhelming support of international evidence behind it. It's equally sad because this merger will never likely happen and then we will be left with the status quo, which neither side wanted.

StonyIron

I'd take the opinion of the academic experts on that committee *very* seriously.

Theresa Reidy for example would be one of the most knowledgable people you could possibly find on issues like public finance, political economy etc etc. She would have very deep insight into exactly this kind of thing; how best to structure systems of public administration.

UCC actually has a really excellent Department of Government and has published a lot on local government issues.

It seems totally daft to ignore their advice on this.
Not only is is academically sound but it's also very much aware of the specifics of the Cork situation as it is based here.

draiochtanois

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draiochtanois

This post has been deleted.

Reputable Rog

Dublin won't come out of this unscathed.
The fault for this lies with the City who failed to make a proper business case for a boundary extension and were unrealistic in the area they wanted.
The same fate befell Limerick City which went for too big a land grab but in many ways the new situation there has been to the City's benefit as it now has a realistic boundary and furthermore the merger allowed for a dramatically reduced commercial rate across both City and County, something which will also arise in Cork.

StonyIron

draiochtanois wrote: »

UCC has an excellent department of anything? really?

It does actually. Unless you just want to be snide about it. It ranks pretty reasonably internationally.

flo8s967qjh0nd

StonyIron wrote: »

It does actually. Unless you just want to be snide about it. It ranks pretty reasonably internationally.

Ranks top 2% in the world across the board. But of course, what's the point of having experts if we won't listen to them.

flo8s967qjh0nd

Also, when are we merging the Cork City and Cork County sections on here?

StonyIron

Kendall Screeching Appetizer wrote: »

Ranks top 2% in the world across the board. But of course, what's the point of having experts if we won't listen to them.

Far more important to listen to FG back benchers and vested interests. It's our culture!

Roger Hassenforder

Je_suis_Jean wrote: »

Irish Water is an amalgamation of inefficient council departments and is a huge task. It will take years to turn the mess they are starting with into a streamlined and efficient organisation but they'll get there. Calling Irish Water a failure so early in it's phase of development is just silly.

IW is nothing but the apogee of Irish bureaucracy and duplication; inserted between "inefficient" councils, the public, democratically elected representatives, the Department of the Environment and the EPA.

back on topic:

The City wanted an expansion, but floated a ridiculous proposal, that would have necessitated transfer of 100s of staff, and 36million (?) in annual subvention to the Council to compensate for loss in income. It was effectively a merger.
I don't think the County really wanted the merger either, but they are coming out of it better than the City. The City will be a division of the County, competing for funding with the other two.

Interesting that the 2 impartial academics that study this type of thing were against it, but the Captains of industry, along with an X Kerry manager who possibly sees a benefit for Tralee in a reduction in Cork City's stature*, were in favour. I'm all for more business involvement in how Councils are run, they are contributing a large proportion of income, but not to this extent.


*dons tinfoil hat

yenom

Why should someone in Fermoy have voting rights on something in Farranree?

Ludo

Why should someone in Farranree have voting rights on something in Douglas?