Cork council merger: Citizens to elect mayor directly

The board of Duhallow considered the proposal to extend the Cork metropolitan area. What we would like to see is that the county and city authorities amalgamate as a single local authority, with a mayor elected directly by the people, writes Maura Walsh

Underneath this structure we would seek to have municipal districts and city wards funded and resourced by amalgamated structures — there should be 13, going on the existing municipals and wards. All municipal districts and city wards would have equal status.

Work needs to be done to decide what responsibilities each structure should have, which duties would fall to the central structure and which to the municipal districts and city wards.

We would envisage a much greater level of decentralisation than exists at present and much more than community and amenity grants should be decided at municipal level.

We see the amalgamated structure more as a regional government level, while municipal districts would represent local government. Cork County Council already has a wealth of experience in managing rural, peri- urban as well as city areas.

We would be opposed to any significant extension of the metropolitan boundary as we see this as having the potential to create a “super county” with the population, resources, infrastructure and rate base, without which rural Cork would be further disadvantaged and even decimated as a result. Work also needs to be done on how many representatives per head of capita each municipal district and ward would have. It would need to be borne in mind that a situation whereby the city, if left as single municipal district or metropolitan area, could have a population and representation to out-vote the rest of the county and therefore that situation should be avoided.

Maura Walsh is manager at IRD Duhallow