Review of City boundry announced by Environment Minister

antoobrien · 21-01-2015 6:21pm #1

A review group has been formed to review the City boundary and/or the possibility amalgamation of the two councils. There is due to be public consultation (no timelines mentioned) and are due to report in 9 months.

While the Galway Local Government Committee will look at the current city boundary, it is felt that the case for boundary alteration, which exists in Cork, does not arise to the same extent in Galway. The Committee will report within 9 months of commencement and as in the case of the Cork review, appointments to it are on a pro bono basis, with no payments apart from any necessary travel/subsistence expenses.

Minister Kelly said: “The ambition of this is to create a stronger Galway. The major urban centres are critical to the economic success of their wider regional hinterlands. Weaknesses due to divided governance in Limerick and Waterford have been addressed. The review of local government arrangements in Cork announced last week will address the long-standing anomaly of the outdated city boundary and will also examine the option of local authority unification. It is logical also to consider the option of unifying the city and county structures in Galway, not least because of the potential of a stronger Galway authority to reinforce the process of economic recovery and growth, not only in Galway but in the west generally”.

http://galwaybayfm.ie/environment-minister-announces-review-galway-city-county-boundaries/

http://www.environ.ie/en/LocalGovernment/LocalGovernmentReform/News/MainBody,40082,en.htm

bonzodog2 · 21-01-2015 6:38pm

I thought the City & County Councils had already been merged

the dark phantom · 21-01-2015 6:41pm

bonzodog2 wrote: »

I thought the City & County Councils had already been merged

Only in Waterford and Limerick, Galway city boundary was much larger than Limericks and gave Galway plenty of room in which to grow, Waterford had a large city boundary too but was merged with the county as its population is fairly small.

Still the wrong decision to merge though.