Vital reform needed in local government

I AGREE with Emmet Murphy (May 4) that it’s time for a serious debate about local government in Ireland.

There are 29 county councils in the Republic of Ireland with 753 members. Five city councils have another 130 members. Then we have five borough councils with 60 members and a further 75 town councils that account for 684 members. Just 58% of the electorate turned out to elect 1,627 local government councillors in June 2009.

The two regional assemblies are conspicuous by their irrelevance. The one for the Border, Midlands and West has 29 members. The other for the South and East has 41 members. Those members are not elected directly by the people, but are nominated by local authorities. We should be wary about merging several county councils into regional councils. Rather than dissolving the Seanad, we would be better off abolishing the borough and town councils, while at the same time disbanding the two regional assemblies. Local politicians have ignored the obvious question for decades. Do they exercise any meaningful power on behalf of the people?