Analysis: Split committee on Cork council merger report

Former minister for the environment Phil Hogan oversaw the abolition of town councils and mergers of some county councils as part of a dramatic and contentious reform programme.

There were good arguments for reform. There were town councils in tiny towns and none in towns that had grown much larger. But did they all need to be rationalised? Merging two Tipperary councils corrected a historical anomaly but joining city and county councils in Waterford and Limerick was far more contentious.

Hogan's successor, Alan Kelly, may now oversee the most controversial change of all if he implements the report of the Cork Local Government Committee.

The key recommendation of the five-person group is that city and county councils should be merged into one, creating a super authority that would serve a population of more than 500,000 people.

Bold call

It’s a bold (and divisive) call but one that seems, crucially, to have Kelly’s backing.

The biggest initial difficulty is that the committee is not united. Two of its members disagreed with the conclusion and argued trenchantly for a two-council solution.

Theresa Reidy and Dermot Keogh, both UCC academics, rejected the single authority solution, saying it would have a detrimental impact on Cork city. They argued there was no evidence that grafting an urban and rural council together would work.

If Kelly implements the report, it will inevitably mean the city council in Galway will have to go. It will mean there will be no cities outside Dublin with their own distinctive politics and autonomy.

The majority argument is that the new council would provide a single voice for Cork. This, it says, would benefit investment, jobs and retail. It also pointed to the streamlining of planning and the elimination of duplication.

The plan would involve the council being split into three municipal divisions, two rural and the third encompassing the metropolitan area of Cork. Under a unitary council, the divisions would have a wide range of powers, with the full council meeting for strategic purposes.

Unwieldy

It is acknowledged that 89 councillors at these meetings might be unwieldy. There would be a staff of 3,200 and a budget of €440 million. The group recommends substantial delegation of powers from central government.

There is consensus that retaining current boundaries was not an option. The city has outgrown its administrative lines, but the majority view was an enlarged city would lead to difficulties preventing urban sprawl and make it harder to focus on the city. This solution would also remove the twin headache of staff transfers involving up to 370 staff and the extended city paying an estimated €36 million annually to the county council for lost revenue.

Reidy and Keogh argue the contrary, saying all evidence points to cities driving economic development and that the merger would lead to a dilution of focus on the city’s needs. A city council serving 225,000 people would leave the county council as the fourth-biggest in the country with a population of 290,000.

They have contended the needs of urban and rural councils are completely different. They also say the new municipal districts would have no budgetary powers and no identity. The lord mayor role would become wholly titular. The same would go even with a directly elected mayor, who would have no powers.

Given the tenor and robust arguments of the minority report, logic suggests that further deep investigation is needed before the trigger is pulled on this one.