Sir, – As the people of Limerick went to directly elect their mayor for the first time, they served as national guinea pigs in a political experiment in devolution that has the potential to be extended to other parts of the country. I wish them well.
It reopened the wound that is the decision to disband town and borough councils in 2014; a populist measure undertaken 10 years ago at a time when fewer politicians sounded like a good thing (although not when it comes to the number of seats in the Dáil, which has only grown, naturally).
A decade later, though, and with so many towns and cities enduring states of physical and commercial decay, I cannot help but wonder whether the decision to disempower the people in relation to their own localities in favour of empowering often-unelected county figures was short-sighted in the extreme.
Figures show that the dissolutions of their councils have cost cities like Kilkenny and towns like Clonmel tens and sometimes millions of euro in funding and investment in ways that are manifested in empty high street shop fronts, misplaced and paltry housing investments, and nonsensical traffic planning decisions.
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As the Treaty County gets a taste of what used to be, is it time to do the unthinkable and expand the ranks of local politicians by restoring town and borough councils, returning powers to urban dwellers outside of Dublin whose county managers have not served them as well as we might have hoped? – Yours, etc,
KILLIAN FOLEY-WALSH,
Kilkenny City.
