Mayor accuses Minister of vandalism in ‘abolishing’ council

The Lord Mayor of Cork has written an open letter to the people of the city in which he has accused Minister for the Environment Alan Kelly of "political vandalism" with his decision to proceed with the merger of Cork City and County Councils into one local authority.

Cllr Chris O'Leary of Sinn Féin said Mr Kelly's support for a recommendation by a Local Government Review Group that the two councils be merged was a cause for concern, particularly given Mr Kelly's intention to seek support for it at a Cabinet meeting next week.

Cllr O'Leary said the haste with which Mr Kelly came to "this momentous conclusion" meant he either had knowledge of the group recommendation for some time or he made up his mind to abolish Cork City Council almost on receipt of the recommendations.

“Either scenario gives serious cause for concern. And make no mistake about it – what is proposed here is the abolition of Cork City Council,” said Cllr O’Leary, adding that such a move was fundamentally anti-democratic.

‘End to accountability’

“Be under no illusions – what is being proposed here means an end to democratic accountability within the City of Cork and, in my view, amounts to an impetuous and reckless act of political vandalism.”

Cllr O'Leary said Labour leader Joan Burton had stated in Cork on Thursday that "the clear preference for the Labour Party is for local government to be as local as possible" and yet what Mr Kelly was proposing was the complete antithesis of this.

He said the current Government had already amalgamated Limerick City and County Councils, Waterford City and County Councils and North and South Tipperary Councils, while a review is under way into reform in Galway city and county.

"The (government) policy document itself has been criticised strongly by the European Union which argues that these moves are flying in the face of the principle of subsidiarity - in other words, it is taking democracy further away from the citizens it purports to represent."

Cllr O'Leary also took issue with the recommendation of the Cork LGRG, which was chaired by former Beamish & Crawford MD, Alf Smiddy, for its dismissal of the idea of a boundary extensions and instead opting for a merger of the two councils into a unitary authority.

He said the “paucity of substantial evidence for the merger proposition is glaring” and there seemed to be an assumption by certain quarters of the business community in Cork that the merger will automatically achieve benefits which cannot be achieved by an expansion.

‘Especially worrying’

The idea that a merged unitary authority will lead to economic development, jobs growth and more efficient decision-making, while not allowing that a substantially expanded metropolitan Cork could achieve the same if not better was especially worrying, he said.

“The vast weight of evidence supports the assertion that cities of a certain scale act as pivotal drivers of economic growth, both for themselves and, invariably, for their wider hinterlands,” said Cllr O’Leary.

He pointed out that the recommendation for a merger was a majority decision with three members of the LGRG backing such a move while two members of the group opted for a minority recommendation of an expansion of the city boundary.

And most worryingly, there was no mechanism of appeal in the process which left Cork City Council with no option other than to seek legal advice on taking a judicial review of the entire LGRG process if it is to preserve local government in the city, he said.