This row has dragged on for far too long

That old Irish joke, that the first item on any agenda is ‘the split’, has been superseded by the never-ending debate around the wisdom of amalgamating Cork city and county councils or of extending city boundaries to encompass growing dormitory towns and villages. 

In this debate, it seems that ‘the split’ is the only item on the agenda and the ultimate objective — improved local government for the county — has been lost in a fog of acrimony and dead-hand intransigence.

Positions have hardened. The strident rejection of the report of former chief planner for Scotland, Jim Mackinnon, who recommended new city boundaries, by the author of an earlier, shelved report, as a “cobbled together work of fiction”, is unlikely to advance matters. Alf Smiddy, who was chairman of the LGR group that split 3-2 in 2015 in favour of the creation of a single super-council, described the contribution to the debate as “a compromise solution, but, in fact, it has all the hallmarks of a cobbled-together, unstructured reverse takeover of the county by the city”. Hardly the words of a peacemaker disposed to compromise.