Cork council merger plans to be axed but extension of city boundary recommended

Roger Hassenforder

Water John wrote: »

KC's becomes part of the conurbation.

This could be The red line issue for many!

mire

Reputable Rog wrote: »

I heard Smiddy on the radio this morning and he was the most impressive of all the contributors. The Fishmonger who met the Queen was appalling, hasn't a clue.
The Labour Party rep was a complete gob****e as well going on about how the City Council had an anchor tenant lined up for North Main Street shopping centre and tnus was his rationale for the extension of the boundary.

If Alf impressed you, the others must have been really bad!!

mire

Your revolutionte=Roger Hassenforder;104544759]

mire wrote: »

-; at present cork city has a taxation base which includes about 125,000 people and 6500 businesses. In other words, a huge part of its suburban and metropolitan constituency (residents and businesses) reside in a different jurisdiction and paid taxes and rates there. In most urban areas the solution to this has been to gradually expand the boundary of the city grows. In cork however this has not happened for 50 years and as a result you have a huge mismatch between the administrative city and the functional city. This makes no sense as this city effectively serves a functional area of about 300,000 people. This is not sustainable; it is not in line with best practice in local government and service delivery.

What does this even mean?

a huge part of its suburban and metropolitan constituency (residents and businesses) reside in a different jurisdiction and paid taxes and rates there.

So?
This applies in almost all cities. It's not a valid argument. Should Dublin City absorb parts of Rathdown, Fingal, Dun Laoighre? Under your rationale they should...

Let's confine ourselves to facts from above:
120,000 live in the City.
75,000 work there.

Either 61% of the population of Cork City are working adults or a significant portion of the workforce employed in Cork City are from outside it's functional area, the opposite of what they are arguing?

effectively, Cork City has become a rump and glorified shopping centre for the people from the "metro" area, where the majority of people live Hence Smiddys (not mine!!) argument that the larger absorb the smaller, the smaller almost redundant at this stage.

The City argument can be distilled thus:
You're more successful/bigger/better /richer then us- we want some of your pie, so must you suffer to our advantage.

Cork City needs room to grow, but this need for room doesn't bestow some right to abdorb vast regions of the County merely because they're contiguous. Cork isn't the second city on the island, nor the "real capital" as other delusion it's would have. We should be looking to offer something different to the sprawl Dublin offers.

There needs to be a reasoned discussion between the two, where agreement is reached/brokered through negotiation, where the delivery of services to the people can be best delivered, not pandering to some historical chip on a Cork mans shoulder about Cork being the second city.
Cork should develop and grow as a region, in which the city as well as the county has a voice.[/quote]

Your description of the city as a 'rump' which is 'almost redundant' is bizarre, and suggests you've a scant appreciation of what the issue really involves. I've no idea why you can't comprehend the issue of rates and city size. Try reading McKinnon maybe. Or previous reports, Bovaird? The Minority and Majority reports.

Reputable Rog

mire wrote: »

If Alf impressed you, the others must have been really bad!!

I know it's not saying much when Alf is impressive, but Pat O'Connell is an inarticulate clown.

Roger Hassenforder

mire wrote: »

Your description of the city as a 'rump' which is 'almost redundant' is bizarre, and suggests you've a scant appreciation of what the issue really involves. I've no idea why you can't comprehend the issue of rates and city size. Try reading McKinnon maybe. Or previous reports, Bovaird? The Minority and Majority reports.

(i think this is your quote?)

O deary me, apparently I've a "scant appreciation", and am failing to comprehend"...rates etc. (if we ever met each other, you'd see the irony on that. Anyhooo..,)

You're trotting out the same argument, referring me to read reports I've read.
I've given you one succinct point, you've repeatedly failed to respond.

KCAccidental

Roger Hassenforder wrote: »

Sure west cork MD is bigger than most counties bar about 5 of them

what does a rural area have to do with City suburbia?

Roger Hassenforder

KCAccidental wrote: »

what does a rural area have to do with City suburbia?

you made the point Ballincollig/Carrigaline MD ( whose area is mostly rural) is bigger than the city. Im just pointing out West Cork MD is bigger than most counties...

KCAccidental

Roger Hassenforder wrote: »

you made the point Ballincollig/Carrigaline MD ( whose area is mostly rural) is bigger than the city. Im just pointing out West Cork MD is bigger than most counties...

No, the point I was making is that people screaming about their towns losing identity and local power are misinformed at best or just ignorant. Ballincollig has to share resources over a wider area than Cork City Council and have no town council.

West Cork has nothing to do with it.

Water John

The lack of ongoing Local Gov, which lead to places like Ballincollig not having a UDC was a travesty.
Do nothing, rather than upset anyone.

Roger Hassenforder

KCAccidental wrote: »

No, the point I was making is that people screaming about their towns losing identity* and local power are misinformed at best or just ignorant. Ballincollig has to share resources over a wider area than Cork City Council and have no town council.

West Cork has nothing to do with it.

I'm not sure what your point is TBH, as it seems you arent with regard to mine!

is Ballincollig being bigger than the City a good thing or a bad thing in your opinion?


*Isn't this one of the cries of the antiSmiddys... this whole loss of identity of the City?

Water John

The whole idea of Youghal, Bantry, Kanturk and Cork City being in one LA was nuts and is dead and buried.
Any one who supported it, has damaged credibility. Is it being suggested that the City was the poorer performer and that by merging the County would bring up its standard?
My experience of mergers is , generally the performance graduates towards the lower.

The city needs to be fairly tight, lively and vibrant and not given the leeway to sprawl, which it will do if given the opportunity.

KCAccidental

Roger Hassenforder wrote: »

I'm not sure what your point is TBH, as it seems you arent with regard to mine!

is Ballincollig being bigger than the City a good thing or a bad thing in your opinion?


*Isn't this one of the cries of the antiSmiddys... this whole loss of identity of the City?

I was responding to your point. Please try to keep up with the thread.

Roger Hassenforder wrote: »

they replaced the Town Councils with Municipal Districts. Not a massive difference, as anything serious (Roads, Capital, Water Services, Planning, Corporate, HR) was done centrally/Divisionally.

When one of the major planks of opposition to boundary extension is loss of identity, people should be informed of what the identity or lack thereof of their town actually means.

Does Ballincollig stay in their ludicrously geographically large and mixed district, or do they join they city and become part of a more geographically sensible, and suburban district with Curraheen + Bishopstown?

It's a no brainer, but it's being obscured by idiots like Smiddy.

*There is a bit of a difference between a city district of 125,000 fighting for resources with Skibbereen and Kanturk and a suburban town like Ballincollig. If you can't see that you must be trolling.

Water John

I think stringing to Blarney, Ballincollig on the West and beyond the M8 to the East is sprawling.

Roger Hassenforder

KCAccidental wrote: »

I was responding to your point. Please try to keep up with the thread.

When one of the major planks of opposition to boundary extension is loss of identity, people should be informed of what the identity or lack thereof of their town actually means.

Does Ballincollig stay in their ludicrously geographically large and mixed district, or do they join they city and become part of a more geographically sensible, and suburban district with Curraheen + Bishopstown?

It's a no brainer, but it's being obscured by idiots like Smiddy.

*There is a bit of a difference between a city district of 125,000 fighting for resources with Skibbereen and Kanturk and a suburban town like Ballincollig. If you can't see that you must be trolling.

you're all over the place, but charming none the less...
I honestly am lost, i dont know what point youre trying to make. Dont bother trying to explain though, I'll be grand.

"ludicrously large" - its the smallest MD in Co Cork...just saying, not trolling, but struggling to keep up, one of the biggest populations too...

KCAccidental

Now I know you're trolling!

tell me which you would prefer...

Suburban town with 81% of workers commuting to the City in a huge district which incorporates a rural hinterland and the Harbour on the opposite side of said City

A district with neighbouring suburban areas which share the same planning characteristics and already is planned to become a conurbation in the near future.

Other districts in County Cork are irrelevant imo as they dont share the same characteristics as the suburbs.

DylanGLC

The loss of identity argument is a load of fear mongering, like in the marriage equality campaign ("how could a kid survive without a mom!"). It is just putting emotion into something that doesn't need emotion. Being realistic, the changing of council will have next to no effect on the ordinary person and if they were to just do it without telling anyone, most wouldn't notice. We'll look at this from two different areas.

Douglas (from the bridge where the city boundary starts to just passed Maryborough Ridge/Broadale), Grange, Togher, Rochestown, etc:
No matter what way you look at it, these are part of the city in everything but council. There is very little difference from South Terrace to outside McDonald's in Douglas. No one is denying they should be added to the city (especially when you read articles and they all say "adding Blarney, the airport, Glanmire, Ballincollig" and not these areas). If they do not come part of the city by 2019 it would be insanity.

The rest:
I think people confuse what a city is. All are different but from what I gather, everyone expects a city to be a built up area, like the city centre. Many see an estate and think "city?", or at least that is the impression I get. Ballincollig can go on and on and on about it is a rural village in the middle of nowhere, but at the end of the day it is a pretty large urban area right next to a city (it even has its own Starbucks as proof). There are cities in the US with even less people living in it. The town isn't going to suddenly lose its identity because it is under a different council.

So why I think the extension should happen. The first area I listed, obvious. If anyone is saying otherwise, they're in denial and want to see the city fail or something. There is no sense in keeping them in the county. The second. The city needs a bigger population if it wants to attract more businesses and get more money. 125,000 is not an amazing number for a city, especially compared to Dublin and Belfast. However, you can only say so many times "oh, it's 125,000 but it's really closer to 300,000". The city also needs grass area to expand in the future. Empty area. Just because it is a field and not a busy urban street doesn't mean it can't or shouldn't be city. If we only give the city just what they need (minimum) right now, i.e. the suburbs, in 50 years or less we will face the same problems.

Also, anyone who views the city as solely a shopping centre, and views areas like Kinsale or Bandon objectively 'better' at being a city is delusional.

Roger Hassenforder

KCAccidental wrote: »

Now I know you're trolling!

tell me which you would prefer...

Suburban town with 81% of workers commuting to the City in a huge district which incorporates a rural hinterland and the Harbour on the opposite side of said City

A district with neighbouring suburban areas which share the same planning characteristics and already is planned to become a conurbation in the near future.

Other districts in County Cork are irrelevant imo as they dont share the same characteristics as the suburbs.

can i have a look at C?
All Cork MDs share several characteristics.

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo

DylanGLC wrote: »

This isn't exact as, if I'm being honest, I am only really familiar with the city centre and the south east area of the suburbs (Douglas are). For me, even from just looking at a map, this would make most sense. It brings in all of the areas around the city that are basically the city anyway (Douglas, Grange, Rochestown, Moneygourney, Glanmire, etc), brings in two main business/industrial areaareas (Little Island and the Airport), keeps Passage West, Blarney, Carrigtoughal and Carrigaline in the county and gives the city a lot of area (especially in terms south) to expand further. For me, this would be the best of both worlds with the Mackinnon and County Council proposals. First is a simple Google Maps boundary, second is a Google Earth one with the current city boundary shown in green. Obviously, neither are not 100% exact.

Really anything less than that as an extension will be really bad for the people of Cork.

Still think there should be a way to put in the whole harbour area as an extended and linked but separate type of area.

mire

Cork County Council getting desperate as it tries to employ the fathers to do its bidding and rigs radio station poll.

Very odd editorial decisions in the examiner. They have a story today that 12000 farmers are opposed to boundary extension. Firstly, did the IFA take a vote of members or did they just interview a spokesperson? What an odd way to craft a headline. Secondly, why should farmers be asked about an urban boundary extension? " read the article and it's clear where the message is coming from. County Hall. Still whinging about a boundary extension.

Another story in there about the county council rigging a radio poll on 96fm.and these guys wanted to run the city.

namloc1980

County are simply playing the emotional card. No interest in the real issues other than clouding it with "we'll lose our identity" nonsense. What does that even mean?

Roger Hassenforder

The whole loss of identify nonsense formed the basis of the AntiSmiddy argument. The irony...
This was and is only about the bottom line, money.
Lets remove the hysteria and emotion from the field, and confine ourselves to facts:



For an Authority that claim they need more land for housing, City's performance is pretty sh1t3 at managing the houses they have.
Both Authorities have a similar stock, but a higher vacancy rate in the City. What, with the homelessness crisis and all?


Authority Total No. of Social Housing Dwellings as at 31/12/2015 Dwellings Directly Provided (Constructed or Purchased) by the LA Dwellings Provided under RAS Dwellings Provided under HAP Dwellings Provided under the SHCEP % of the Directly Provided Dwellings that were Vacant on 31/12/2015
Cork City 9,926 8,761 914 111 140 5.03
Cork County 9,806 7,219 774 900 913 4.56



“Oooo.. we dont have enough room for houses...we need more land..”.
County are better at returning stock for use, at on average ¼ the cost of City.
You’d imagine a City with such a crisis would be top performing in such a metric:

Authority Average Time from Date of Vacation of Dwelling to the Date in 2015 when a new Tenancy had Commenced (Weeks)
Cork City 92.74
Cork County 12.69



Authority Average Cost Expended on Getting the Re-tenanted Units Ready for Re-letting (€)
Cork City 31,019.65
Cork County 7,431.66


“Ooo, but we need more rates... “
County have a better rates collection rate:

Authority % Commercial Rates Collected 2011 % Commercial Rates Collected 2012 % Commercial Rates Collected 2013 % Commercial Rates Collected 2014 % Commercial Rates Collected 2015
Cork City 79.0 76.0 72.0 72.0 78.0
Cork County 82.0 79.0 80.0 79.0 86.0




http://www.lgma.ie/sites/default/files/2015-pi-report.pdf

County are ahead on almost every metric. (The fire brigade one is even more striking, considering the size of the County).

That farmer is spot on , the County are a leaner, more efficient organization. I wouldn’t trust City Council to manage a converted dump for a park, they probably couldn’t even get that right... oh wait, might need a better hypothetical example...

pwurple

The above sounds like an argument to combine the councils and streamline. Which I would actually be in favour of as an option B.

But the arbitrary division or an argument to keep it as is, is daft.

I don't know what the rates % is supposed to prove above. I spent about 2 years trying to get management fees out of a single solicitors office in Cork city. I can guarantee you that fecker wasn't paying rates either. They have every legal trick in the book on delaying and denying.

Roger Hassenforder

pwurple wrote: »

The above sounds like an argument to combine the councils and streamline. Which I would actually be in favour of as an option B.

But the arbitrary division or an argument to keep it as is, is daft.

I don't know what the rates % is supposed to prove above. I spent about 2 years trying to get management fees out of a single solicitors office in Cork city. I can guarantee you that fecker wasn't paying rates either. They have every legal trick in the book on delaying and denying.

merging them is a better idea than this ridiculous expansion all right.
Both are bad ideas IMO, but one a lot worse!

mire

Roger Hassenforder wrote: »

merging them is a better idea than this ridiculous expansion all right.
Both are bad ideas IMO, but one a lot worse!

On one side you have people with many years of expertise and experience in the field of local government reform, Urban planning, Public administration etc Overwhelmingly recommending against the idea of a merger and overwhelmingly supporting the idea of a boundary extension.

However, You think we should go with the farmers.

This is a brainless way to develop public policy.

Roger Hassenforder

mire wrote: »

On one side you have people with many years of expertise and experience in the field of local government reform, Urban planning, Public administration etc Overwhelmingly recommending against the idea of a merger and overwhelmingly supporting the idea of a boundary extension.

However, You think we should go with the farmers.

This is a brainless way to develop public policy.

Because I said we should go with the farmers?

You'd swear all "people with many years of expertise and experience in the field of local government reform, Urban planning, Public administration etc Overwhelmingly recommending against the idea of a merger and overwhelmingly supporting the idea of a boundary extension.

"Overwhelming" eh?
One could procure 4 reports in the morning by said such experts recommending anything we want...

Frostybrew

I feel the County Council's proposal has the potential to be the biggest example of shooting oneself in the foot ever.

A strong metropolitan urban area with a cohesive identity is the most attractive entity to a potential overseas investor. What the the County is failing to recognise is that the ring towns (Mallow, Fermoy, Macroom, Bandon etc.) of Cork city will benefit greatly from an expanded metropolitan area. A strong metropolitan area will grow faster than before with over spill growth taking place in the ring towns, leading to more rate payers and an increase in revenue. The metropolitan area should be the LUTS area outlined in 1978 and reaffirmed in 2001 CASP report.

Both of the County's proposals to date (merging, and limited expansion) are incredibly backward looking and have the potential to do some serious damage to the overall region's potential. A merger of a larger rural minded County absorbing a smaller urban city will only lead to an escalation of the practice of high rate paying urban areas supporting the more rural loss making ones, which is the current practice with the suburban county areas paying for expensive dispersed rural county services. A weak small is less attractive than a medium sized second city to potential investors.

Limited expansion will be even more destructive as will obliterate the very successful satellite town policy creating a continuous Dublin-like urban sprawl and all it's resultant problems. The lands the County are offering in their second proposal are almost exclusively green belt, leaving the city with no option but to expand into these areas. A large metropolitan area a la the LUTS area would allow the City to maintain existing green belts and expand both the satellite towns and suburban areas in a more sustainable fashion.

Personally I would go further and give the expanded metropolitan area control over public transport by creating a Cork Transport Authority for the metropolitan area the the bus and possibly the rail network removed from the control of CIE.

j8wk2feszrnpao

Frostybrew wrote: »

A strong metropolitan urban area with a cohesive identity is the most attractive entity to a potential overseas investor.

As someone who works in a major employer in the Cork region, I've always questioned this (as I doubted a major player would look at a single figure to make an important decision), and due to circumstance actually asked an extremely senior individual when a chance opportunity arose. I put that question, of the expansion and what it would mean to an investor, and got the reply that it means very little and would be well down the list of items to be looked at. I didn't want to dig deeper on the issue with this person (given it was at work and we both had limited time), but it was good to get their opinion.

There's a lot of people contributing to the thread, and it's just angry statements. They seem to want a bigger 'city' almost just to rival Dublin, and 'size' is their biggest concern. There's doesn't appear to be a 'plan' or something concrete that is going to happen should the expansion occur; i.e. what are the specific implementations that the City Council are going to do?

I agree that the loss of identify issue is nonsense, but can understand that there are people in areas like Ballincolig, that don't want to be encompassed into the city boundary and don't want to be represented by City Hall. To just dismiss that is one way to fail to resolve the issue.

DylanGLC wrote: »

Being realistic, the changing of council will have next to no effect on the ordinary person and if they were to just do it without telling anyone, most wouldn't notice.

Well, if that's the case, then why have the change? If it'll have no effect,then how do you convince people of the benefit?

By the way, I have no problem with anyone knocking the County Council for valid reasons. But there seems to be this blind faith that the City Council can manage the expansion to everyone benefit and they are somehow without fault in all of this.

Roger Hassenforder

Frostybrew wrote: »

Personally I would go further and give the expanded metropolitan area control over public transport by creating a Cork Transport Authority for the metropolitan area the the bus and possibly the rail network removed from the control of CIE.

Great idea, couldn't agree more. I'd go even further and devolve even more functions from Dublin: Education, Policing, Housing.
Have a proper local government structure.

Frostybrew wrote: »

A strong metropolitan urban area with a cohesive identity is the most attractive entity to a potential overseas investor. What the the County is failing to recognise is that the ring towns (Mallow, Fermoy, Macroom, Bandon etc.) of Cork city will benefit greatly from an expanded metropolitan area. A strong metropolitan area will grow faster than before with over spill growth taking place in the ring towns, leading to more rate payers and an increase in revenue. The metropolitan area should be the LUTS area outlined in 1978 and reaffirmed in 2001 CASP report.

Both of the County's proposals to date (merging, and limited expansion) are incredibly backward looking and have the potential to do some serious damage to the overall region's potential. A merger of a larger rural minded County absorbing a smaller urban city will only lead to an escalation of the practice of high rate paying urban areas supporting the more rural loss making ones, which is the current practice with the suburban county areas paying for expensive dispersed rural county services*. A weak small is less attractive than a medium sized second city to potential investors.

Limited expansion will be even more destructive as will obliterate the very successful satellite town policy creating a continuous Dublin-like urban sprawl and all it's resultant problems. The lands the County are offering in their second proposal are almost exclusively green belt, leaving the city with no option but to expand into these areas. A large metropolitan area a la the LUTS area would allow the City to maintain existing green belts and expand both the satellite towns and suburban areas in a more sustainable fashion.

The County might argue, they already have a strong Metro area, proving quite successful in attracting FDI (although if Trump has his way, wont matter what they do!), of which the City want a piece of the action. TBH, I don't think its a very significant driver in a decision to base here, what the LA structure is or who runs the place. Corporation tax, labour costs and employability, language and a stable (relatively(!) corruption free) regulatory environment are. (edit: beaten by Munstermagic!)

While we've seen it bear some fruits (e.g. Jack Lunch tunnel), one key objective of LUTS 1/2 & CASP was the redevelopment of the city centre and docklands. (And here we're still talking about it). Instead we got peripheral development of office based services, rather than enhancing the City as the high density economic powerhouse of the region as was planned , the periphery has become the economic engine. that is what the City want. They failed to provide it, someone else did, and now they want it. The County don't want to hand it over.

The merger was shot down for several reasons, as it was effectively giving Cork City to the County. MacKinnon is the opposite, effectively giving the County to the City, but leaving a residual area, someone mentioned like 20 Leitrims! 20 Westmeaths might be a better analogy. Performance indicators and benchmarking suggest one of those organizations is better at running their respective areas, while one has proven less than spectacular at running theirs.

I live in the City, but I'd sooner be absorbed into the County, than see the City get their hands on the MacKinnon area.


*Sure isn't this how Ireland is ran, Dublin subsidizing the rest of the Country, the healthy subsidising the ill in our health service, the good drivers subsidizing the crap drivers etc.

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo

Roger Hassenforder wrote: »

Great idea, couldn't agree more. I'd go even further and devolve even more functions from Dublin: Education, Policing, Housing.
Have a proper local government structure.




The County might argue, they already have a strong Metro area, proving quite successful in attracting FDI (although if Trump has his way, wont matter what they do!), of which the City want a piece of the action. TBH, I don't think its a very significant driver in a decision to base here, what the LA structure is or who runs the place. Corporation tax, labour costs and employability, language and a stable (relatively(!) corruption free) regulatory environment are. (edit: beaten by Munstermagic!)

While we've seen it bear some fruits (e.g. Jack Lunch tunnel), one key objective of LUTS 1/2 & CASP was the redevelopment of the city centre and docklands. (And here we're still talking about it). Instead we got peripheral development of office based services, rather than enhancing the City as the high density economic powerhouse of the region as was planned , the periphery has become the economic engine. that is what the City want. They failed to provide it, someone else did, and now they want it. The County don't want to hand it over.

The merger was shot down for several reasons, as it was effectively giving Cork City to the County. MacKinnon is the opposite, effectively giving the County to the City, but leaving a residual area, someone mentioned like 20 Leitrims! 20 Westmeaths might be a better analogy. Performance indicators and benchmarking suggest one of those organizations is better at running their respective areas, while one has proven less than spectacular at running theirs.

I live in the City, but I'd sooner be absorbed into the County, than see the City get their hands on the MacKinnon area.


*Sure isn't this how Ireland is ran, Dublin subsidizing the rest of the Country, the healthy subsidising the ill in our health service, the good drivers subsidizing the crap drivers etc.

So you are saying:
Cork County Council = Good
Cork City Council = Bad
And that = Cork County Council 'deserve' to keep control over parts of Cork City.

I don't agree with that logic.

It doesn't actually matter what Council has control over the City. The point is that a Council is needed to have complete control over the whole of the City, including green space. You could call it the Dragon Council, or the Second City Council, or the Capital of Munster Council, or whatever. Once a single Council gets to administer the whole of Cork City under one united area is what is important.

Increasing the official population of Cork will literally put us on the map. A city with just over 100,000 is considered really small, whereas a city with a population of 200,000 to 300,000 puts us in the region of proper 'European City'. It will put us in the area of 200-300 biggest European Cities. That would be impressive to any FDI looking to set up shop somewhere.
See this link.
Increasing the official population of Cork City to what it actually is will put us up there with well known international cities like Porto, Alicante or Nottingham. We can go to businesses in the UK that are fleeing because of Brexit and say "hey, Ireland doesn't just have one city and the rest is countryside and farmers, there is a proper second city here with everything you could need to run your business".

This is bigger than what Council has control over the City of Cork. It is about having a unified City under the control of one authority that can plan and control its own destiny. Cork City not being able to administer its own airport, or port, or large industrial areas like Little Island is really damaging and bad.
And don't get me wrong, what the City Council can achieve may be limited. But the potential for Cork here is massive.
It is easy for Dublin to fob off Cork as a small place with 'second City syndrome'. I have no doubt that plays a part in the thinking of all institutions in Dublin, like how Gardaí in Cork earn least overtime pay in country or Armed gardaí to cease providing cover on 24/7 basis in Cork due to lack of training and equipment. This is despite Gardai in the City having to deal with more trouble than most other areas in the country.

Maybe the City or the National coffers will need to plug the gap in the loss of rates for the County Council, do whatever it takes. But I will be quite upset for Cork City if it doesn't get a substantial boundary increase. It will hurt Cork if it doesn't.

KCAccidental

My parents live in Ballincollig and I was talking to my Dad about the issue last night. He came up with a very interesting point. He reckons that there is an element of Class snobbery and NIMBYism at the heart of the arguments against expansion. Apparently it seems that the overriding fear from residents of Ballincollig is that families from the housing list in the City would be relocated after expansion, which apparently is intolerable!

Certainly an angle I hadn't thought about and one that they are keeping well hidden from the publicity.