City and county manager grapples with unification process

Limerick city and county manager Conn Murray is grappling with one of the most challenging tasks in local government.

Over the past year, he has been re-aligning two separate administrations — Limerick City Council and Limerick County Council.

And, after the upcoming local elections, he will face one new chamber of 40 councillors, replacing the current city (17 member) and county (28 member) assemblies.

Mr Murray was faced with developing a totally new administration, but also had to contend with issues such as the different IT systems used by the two councils.

Currently, the new administration operates from Limerick City Hall and from Limerick County Hall in the Dooradoyle suburb.

When the new council is elected it will meet at the council chamber at County Hall because of its size. It will then transfer to the Circuit Court Building when the courts move to a new courthouse to be built adjacent to Limerick prison.

In an interview with the Irish Examiner, Mr Murray said: “We are dealing with different cultures in the two councils, different ways of operating different pressures. “Has there been issues? Of course there has. The staff has been exceptionally cooperative. We have shifted nearly 600 staff to different locations over the past 12 months and we have managed to continue to provide services in the city and county.

“In the new organisation there will be 1,000 employed. That will include the entire [outdoor/indoor] workforce. The big push over the past 12 months has been putting together the physical element of the organisation: placing where the departments should be and where the HQs should be.”

He said: “The work is ongoing. We had to adapt buildings. IT solutions had to be found as we were dealing with two different operations. New payroll systems along with HR systems had to be put in place over the past 12 months. That’s the type and nature of the work ongoing while, at the same time, maintaining a service.”

He said the two councils had different ways of doing business with different systems and service delivery.

Mr Murray said: “Over the past year we had to get a common ground. We had to find what was the best way and apply this and that has been our approach to date.”

In getting the ‘best way’, they looked at outside options to see who had that way of doing business.

He said: “Where we have to bring innovation to the table, we bring it to the table.”

Mr Murray said staffing levels in both city and county councils had been falling in recent years. “Both organisations have seen a reduction of 23% in staffing.”

There had been a 40% drop in senior management since he took up duty 18 months ago, mainly due to retirements. “We are going through a process of non-replacement at senior level. There will be key positions throughout the organisation that I will seek to replace because of the skills and competencies which are necessary.”

Mr Murray said the big change he hoped to achieve was in the customer services offered. “That’s what we are working on at the moment and we hope to roll it all out in June.”