Gilmore backs key services for Killarney

Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore has lent his support to retain key services in Killarney, which are being transferred from the tourist town to Tralee, saying centralisation has not happened in other authorities and is not required under local government reform.

He is also urging that a new tourism unit be located in Killarney, which, it is argued, has centuries of experience in tourism, rather than in Tralee, which has a comparatively small and more recent tourism industry.

Mr Gilmore, meeting with a newly formed lobby group attached to Killarney Chamber of Commerce, said it “stands to absolute reason” that the new tourism unit should locate in Killarney, rather than Tralee.

He is also urging Environment and Local Government Minister Phil Hogan to intervene in the increasingly bitter row which will see rates increase in Killarney and services stripped and relocated in Tralee under proposals outlined recently by county manager Tom Curran.

Mr Curran said that while he accepted Killarney was the tourism capital of Kerry, it made economic and logical sense to locate the tourism section in Tralee as part of local government reforms. Mr Curran also said that rates would increase, and he drew strong reaction by his comments that the county did not revolve around Killarney.

Killarney might regard itself as the “tourist capital”, but the rest of the county does not revolve around it, Mr Curran said at the May monthly meeting of the county council.

Mr Gilmore, who met with the Killarney Local Government Action Group at the weekend, said urban centres elsewhere had not been centralised and he is to intervene with Local Government minister Phil Hogan to give specific directions on the matter.

With the loss of its nine-member town council, Killarney is also to lose its planning office, its mayor, its town clerk, and housing functions. Dozens of jobs are at stake and there is no clarity about the future of the council chamber, the continuance of Killarney’s extensive twinning relationships, and the loss of a mayor will be a major blow, a recent meeting of Killarney Town Council was told.

Mr Gilmore said it was always intended to retain an urban-based focus in the provision of local government services and there was no requirement in the new Local Government Act to centralise services.

“Several counties have kept their local offices and services have been retained,” said Mr Gilmore. “It seems to be an issue of interpretation in Kerry.”

The new council, not the outgoing one should decide on the exact structures, Mr Gilmore added.