Sir, – In former taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s address to the Citizens’ Assembly (“Celebrities would make a ‘dog’s dinner’ of being Dublin mayor, Ahern says” , June 27th), he indicated that “the existing four local authorities in Dublin –Dublin City Council, South Dublin County Council, Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council and Fingal County Council – run services like parks, libraries, waterworks, waste and housing maintenance very well.”
Yet despite this observation he then went on to outline his view that Dublin “can’t go on with four local authorities”.
This somewhat incongruous opinion strikes to the heart of the dilemma surrounding the Dublin Citizens’ Assembly, where objectives intended to streamline local government in Dublin may in fact undo solid existing structures in an unfavourable way. On Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council (of which I am an elected member) for example, general strategic issues of importance to the area such as in housing and transport policy can be raised while there is also scope for heavily localised issues which may be of paramount importance to local residents concerned to be debated properly (with strong input from councillors close to the ground) at a full council meeting. With a more centralised, single authority acting for all of Dublin (in line with Mr Ahern’s reasoning), there would be little possibility that contentious issues of local importance (such as a debate surrounding the installation of cycle lanes on Deansgrange Road last year where after much argumentation a compromise was found as agreed by councillors) would either get their due level of deliberation or have the decisions on such issues determined by those more specialist about the local area concerned.
Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown has a population of over 200,000 with its own individual, well-run local government body with its attentions entirely focused on the needs and wellbeing of that population.
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It is exceedingly difficult to imagine how a more centralised Dublin authority behemoth with a directly elected mayor at its core would give that population the same level of effective attention and delivery of services that Mr Ahern complimented. The same would apply in relation to the other Dublin councils. – Yours, etc,
Cllr JOHN KENNEDY,
(Fine Gael),
Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown
County Council Offices,
Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin.