Cork City & County Merger Public Meeting 1/10/2015

• published: 02 Oct 2015
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A public meeting organised by Oliver Moran, a Green party candidate for the forthcoming general election, was held in the Ambassador Hotel to discuss the Minister of the Environment's decision to merge Cork City Council and Cork County Council. Speakers at the event were the Lord Mayor of Cork, Councillor Chris O'Leary Sinn Féin, Aodh Quinlivan a researcher in the area of local government UCC, Jonathon O'Brien TD Sinn Féin and Ciarán Lynch TD Labour. ALL were against the merger. Chris O'Leary explains here about being being given only hours notice of a meeting where the fait acccompli decision to merge the two councils was presented by the Minister for the Environment, Alan Kelly. He outlines how they were then invited to a surprise press conference that many others had already known about. He goes on to explain about how the merger will affect Cork city and county and outlines that, with no recourse to any other option, Cork City council is now seeking a judicial review of the merger decision and are looking into the constitutionality of the Minister's decision. Aodh Quinlivan explains some of the many inconsistencies and vague language in the report. Just one of the items he mentions, is how some councillors will be deemed to be "super" councillors and that citizens will not know when they are voting for a councillor whether or not that councillor will wield "super" councillor weight or will just a be a "backbencher" councillor. Views that the merger is leading towards more centralised government with the distance between citizens and government being increased are expressed.