THE TWO local authorities in Limerick are to merge into one council for the city and county, Minister for Environment and Local Government Phil Hogan has announced.
The Cabinet yesterday approved a proposal by Mr Hogan to abolish Limerick City Council and Limerick County Council after the 2014 local elections and replace them with a single authority.
It will give effect to the main recommendation of a committee chaired by businessman Denis Brosnan that examined the case for reforming local authority.
Ahead of completing plans to be announced later this year for wider reform of local authorities, Mr Hogan said yesterday that there will be directly elected mayors in Dublin and other major councils in 2014.
The Minister also said he was not ruling out any reform options, including the further merging of local authorities and the possible end of the long-standing tradition whereby every one of the 26 counties has at least one full local authority.
At a briefing for journalists yesterday, Mr Hogan said the merger decision was taken early because of specific difficulties Limerick city and county had experienced over a long period of time that required specific structures.
He said the merger would provide potential savings of up to €15 million and would inevitably lead to a smaller number of councillors representing Limerick.
“It will revitalise the city centre,” he said. “The city centre has undergone serious decline. Some of that has been due to development in Limerick county and more to do, in my view, with the lack of focus that the city has received in recent years.
“To rebalance the socioeconomic profile, which is currently skewed by the exclusion of certain suburbs, we decided to merge the two authorities rather than extend the boundaries,” he said.
“I would not be taking the radical step of merging a city and county for the first time since 1898 without acknowledging that there is a big problem with the way Limerick city has been controlled and managed over a long period of time. It is not the complete fault of the city.
“Limerick County Council has made a series of planning permissions on the edge of the city over a period of time which has sucked the entire economic and retail power from city centre out to the suburbs. That was not sustainable,” he said.
On one of the more contentious aspects of the Brosnan report, Mr Hogan said he had ultimately decided against breaching the county boundary, which would have taken parts of Co Clare into the local authority area of Limerick.
He said his wider proposals for local government reform would be published in the autumn. He also referred to a review of staffing levels in Dublin City Council which is currently under way.
Mr Hogan had opposed proposals of his predecessor minister John Gormley for a directly elected Dublin mayor. Asked was this consistent with his plans to bring forward similar proposals, he replied. “I was sceptical of what was proposed, which was adding a layer of bureaucracy on top of four local authorities without additional powers.
“I will be reviewing the powers of the new directly elected mayor of Dublin.
“I could not justify spending €8 million on a new mayor’s office without defining powers and role,” he added.