Cork local government reform group satisfied with progress

The chairman of an independent review group set up to recommend reform of local government structures in Cork has expressed satisfaction with the level of engagement by the public to date, which has resulted in about 90 submissions being received by the group.

Alf Smiddy was appointed in January by Minister for the Environment Alan Kelly to chair the review group to examine the Cork city boundary, with a view to either extending it to encompass a larger metropolitan area or merging it with Cork County Council to create one authority.

Mr Smiddy confirmed the group had received about 90 submissions from interested parties before the closing date for same on February 27th, and that about 90per cent were from citizens.

He said the remaining 10 per cent were from various organisations including two very detailed submissions from Cork City Council and Cork County Council.

He also confirmed that the review group, which has met every week since its establishment on January 17th, was ahead of schedule in terms of its work.

He expressed confidence it would complete its report within the September 30th deadline set by the Minister.

‘Good momentum’

“I am very happy with the work that’s been done to date. We have gone at it full throttle and a good momentum has been created and I am very pleased with the engagement by the public, but particularly by the primary stakeholders, Cork City Council and Cork County Council.

"At the end of the day, a lot of the information we need to examine is in those organisations and we have managed to engage very positively with the CEO [chief executive] of Cork city, Ann Doherty, and her senior management team, and the CEO of Cork County, Tim Lucey, and his senior management team," he said.

The review group has met for discussions with the chief executives of recently merged councils in Limerick, Waterford and Tipperary.

It plans to meet the full elected memberships of both Cork City and County Councils later this month to allow them to expand on their respective submissions.

The group, which also includes emeritus professor of history at University College Cork (UCC) Dermot Keogh, senior counsel John Lucey, UCC politics lecturer Theresa Reidy and former Kerry county manager Tom Curran, plans to meet Oireachtas members from Cork later this month, he said.

“At this point we have gathered many of the written reports that are available and the information that we need, so we are moving on now to the analytical stage,” said Mr Smiddy.