The managing director of the largest multinational company in Sligo has called for a radical reform of local government, saying the town needs one executive decision-making body if it is to grow into a city.
The views expressed by Mr Brendan McKenna of Abbott Ireland were backed by another company director in the town, Mr Gerry McManus, who said that the town would go nowhere if the corporation and county council continued to be at loggerheads. Mr McManus, of Compupac, said he would have no problem with a separate urban authority, if this was necessary for Sligo to be designated as a city.
"The problem with the two authorities now is that they are not singing off the same hymn sheet," he added.
Mr McKenna, who has been in Sligo for 25 years, said the town could no longer "afford to have institutions that worked well in the 19th century dealing with the demands of the 21st century".
Referring to Northern Ireland, he said: "I can go to other areas and be guaranteed planning permission in 30 days."
The comments were made this week at a round-table discussion organised by Fine Gael on developing Sligo into a city. Most frustration was expressed with the planning process generally.
A debate has also been going on for years in the town on whether a controversial inner relief road or a bypass should be built to relieve chronic traffic congestion.
A majority on the corporation is against the inner relief road, while the county council is in favour of it - as were previous corporations. A decision is now awaited from the Minister of the Environment after a public inquiry was held last summer.
At the discussion it was pointed out that in 1972 the government was predicting that Sligo town's population would be 31,000 by 1991. In fact the population in 1996 stood at 18,500.
Mr McKenna said that in today's business world "speed of response" was everything. A single executive decision-making body with the power to make decisions quickly was needed.
"You must have the courage to face up to that. If you ignore it, you will still be here in years to come asking if Sligo has the potential to become a city," he said.
Mr McKenna said he thought the problem with planning was that it was "too democratic" with too much dialogue and debate. "It must come to a point where someone, in the long-term best interests of everyone, stands up and makes a decision."
He said he believed that even if the population of town and county grew to 100,000 from its present 55,000 level, it would still be to everyone's benefit to have one decision-making body. A US-based pharmaceutical company, Abbott Ireland employs 900 people in three plants in Sligo and also has factories in Donegal and Cavan.
Meanwhile, Mr Declan Bree, a Labour member of both the corporation and council and former TD, said the most urgent issue now was for the urban area to get county borough status, which would put it on an equal footing with the State's five largest cities.
He is putting a motion to a Sligo County Council meeting next week, calling on members to support the corporation's application to the Department of the Environment for county borough status and for the borough boundary to be extended.
"If Sligo is to compete with other urban areas for investment, we must be seen as a modern, progressive city and not just another provincial town. In order to succeed we must present a united front to the Department of the Environment," he said.
Mr Bree accused Fine Gael members of the county council, however, of planning to undermine the corporation's campaign for county borough status.
He claimed they feared that "a thriving Sligo city would affect their power base in rural Sligo".