Mayors of five urban centres will meet this weekend to plan a co-ordinated campaign of opposition to elements of the Local Government Bill.
The meeting of the mayors of Wexford, Kilkenny, Sligo, Clonmel and Drogheda will bring together representatives of Fianna Fail, Fine Gael, Sinn Fein and the South Tipperary Workers' and Unemployed Action Group, as well as an Independent, on a common platform.
All five centres are set to lose their borough status in the Bill and would be administered in future by town councils instead of corporations, as at present.
A campaign of opposition has been under way for several weeks in Kilkenny, which locals say would be stripped of its status as a city if the Bill went through unamended.
Politicians from the other four towns have now come out against the Bill, claiming they would also suffer a loss of status. The Bill envisages that only Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford would have city councils, while about 80 other centres would be run by town councils.
Mr Brian O'Donnell, the mayor of Clonmel and a member of the Workers' and Unemployed Action Group, said the Bill would wipe out more than 400 years of history "with the stroke of a pen".
"We feel very strongly about it and the people of the town feel strongly about it. I have been getting phone calls about this all week from people asking if there's anything they can do to stop this," he said.
The meeting, to be held in Drogheda on Saturday, was organised by the mayor of Kilkenny, Mr Paul Cuddihy of Fine Gael, who said the measure made no sense at a time when urban populations were increasing rapidly. He was hopeful, however, that the Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, would accept a proposal which would allow the corporations to retain their status.
A spokeswoman for the Minister said he was examining the proposal and was prepared to consider some modifications to the Bill.
