Sir,– In spring, 2011, Fine Gael and Labour published Reforming Local Government, which declared, inter alia, that Government, would move as many functions as possible from agencies back to local government and reorganise local government structures to allow for devolution of much greater decision-making to local people.
In recent months the Government has issued a number of policy statements relating to local government, which clearly indicate that the earlier policy objectives have been abandoned. For instance, Co Waterford and Waterford City are to be amalgamated, Limerick City and County are to be amalgamated, the two Ridings of Tipperary are to be unified into one administrative county. The housing charge is to be collected and distributed nationally and Bord Gáis is to take over the supply and distribution of the public water supply from local government.
This seems to represent a policy with two objectives: 1. To amalgamate our local authorities into larger and larger units and 2. To allow these units less and less power.
Such policies make nonsense of the Government’s policy declaration, represent the antithesis of devolution and are a complete denial of the principle of subsidiarity – one of the cornerstones policies of the European Union. They also mark a significant step towards authoritarian government! Does anyone care? – Yours, etc,