Is Limerick concerned about losing its City Council

fricatus

Lads,

Hello from Waterford. There are a few of us who are mad as hell at what Phil Hogan is planning to do down here, basically removing our city administration and merging it with the county. See this thread as an example.

Looking through your forum though, I couldn't find any current thread on the matter. Is there much objection to this in Limerick? I'm surprised this is being taken lying down.

I'd be mad as hell, especially since the fourth-largest city, Galway, is not having its city council abolished, while the third largest, Limerick, is. Like WTF?

jmch81

No. happy to be rid of the wasters.

MrLaurel

fricatus wrote: »

Lads,

Hello from Waterford. There are a few of us who are mad as hell at what Phil Hogan is planning to do down here, basically removing our city administration and merging it with the county. See this thread as an example.

Looking through your forum though, I couldn't find any current thread on the matter. Is there much objection to this in Limerick? I'm surprised this is being taken lying down.

I'd be mad as hell, especially since the fourth-largest city, Galway, is not having its city council abolished, while the third largest, Limerick, is. Like WTF?

From my limited reading on the matter, the City Council is not being removed or being subject to a hostile takeover. The City and County councils are being merged to form one governing authority for Limerick, being known as Limerick Local Authorities (crap name but thats what is on the Managers Linkedin profile. We will have one Manager based in Limerick City centre with a team of directors reporting to him.
For the first time, Limerick will have a Director of Economic Development. There are a lot of positives for this merger and for me, no negatives so far.

If you lived in Limerick, you'd know what a detrimental effect having a competing City/ County council situation has had on the City, so this can only be good.
However, due to Croke Park, there can be no lay-offs (at the moment)

Tefral

I think it will be a great thing. Currently the two Councils are looking out for their own patch, with one single focus, it can only be good for Limerick.

liammur

jmch81 wrote: »

No. happy to be rid of the wasters.

I agree, get rid of as many of them as possible. Complete waste of money, not a brain cell between them.

pigtown

I'd say most people would welcome the change. Limerick will still exist as a city and in fact it will have a boundary extension to finally take in it's major suburbs meaning that it will benefit nationally. The city council, and county council aswell for that matter, haven't exactly covered themselves in glory recently so the change can't really hurt.

Why are ye against it in Waterford? I think ye have similar problems such as three local authorities mismanaging the city don't ye?

MrLaurel

jmch81 wrote: »

No. happy to be rid of the wasters.

You do know that we won't be rid of them(to quote Gerry Adams - "They haven't gone away you know). There will be no lay-offs due to Croke Park. We can hope that the senior management will manage the enlarged new authority and avoid city / county in-fighting that has lead us down this path

johnmolloy554

So where we previously had a bloated, over staffed, over paid Limerick City Council and a bloated, over staffed, over paid Limerick County Council, we will now have a bloated, over staffed, over paid Limerick Local Authority

Cookiemunster

MrLaurel wrote: »

You do know that we won't be rid of them(to quote Gerry Adams - "They haven't gone away you know). There will be no lay-offs due to Croke Park. We can hope that the senior management will manage the enlarged new authority and avoid city / county in-fighting that has lead us down this path

The new council will have 17 fewer councillors than the there are now between the 2 councils. Also while there can't be any redundancies AFAIK the neither council has replaced anyone who has retired in the last 2 or 3 years.
Although I do agree there will be serious infighting between the city / county based councillors.

Beaver1

sure wont there be just less Councillors to vote for in the next local election, thats good for all of us,

mud

I hope it's an improvement but we'll have to wait and see. On paper it seems logical but I wonder are we in for even more trouble as people fight for their seats?

Beaver1

isnt it about time they fought for their seat, the same cronies getting in all the time, I predict a lash back on Labour/FF and FG in the next local elections, i can see sinn fein, other smaller parties and independents getting the most seats in the council this time round, no harm I say

Cookiemunster

Beaver1 wrote: »

isnt it about time they fought for their seat, the same cronies getting in all the time, I predict a lash back on Labour/FF and FG in the next local elections, i can see sinn fein, other smaller parties and independents getting the most seats in the council this time round, no harm I say

I don't know if it's going to happen, but there is also meant to be a directly elected mayor who will have a 5 year term. I don't know what use a council will be if the mayor and the 'supermanager' are running the show. As it is they basically do what they're told by the manager.

peckerhead

jmch81 wrote: »

No. happy to be rid of the wasters.

+2. Bunch of thugs.

Dunmoreroader

Lads we obviously have a different take on things down here in the Deise coz I'm thinking along the lines of fricatus; we have 5 proper cities currently with their own 'City Council' i.e. Dublin,Cork, Limerick, Galway & Waterford. When Big Phil is finished with us only Dublin, Cork & Galway will still have stand alone cities; ours are lumped in with the adjoining county.
I'm all for reducing public sector wastefulness, over-staffing, over payment etc. but is this not being perceived in Limerick as it is in Waterford; our cities relegation to the 2nd division???
To compound matters, the regions are to be reduced to 3 based on the new Troika (D,C,G) i.e. no South-East with Waterford as it's regional capital, no Mid-West with Limerick as its capital; where are all the job anouncements?
We lost our IDA director to Cork over a decade ago and the south east is a wasteland for new IDA startups ever since. Isn't Shannon Development being subsumed into the IDA? Do you think decision makers in Cork will give a **** for job creation in Limerick anymore than they currently do for Waterford.
"First they came for the Jews.......
Wake up Limerick and smell the carve up.

kilburn

crazy

pigtown

Dunmoreroader wrote: »

Lads we obviously have a different take on things down here in the Deise coz I'm thinking along the lines of fricatus; we have 5 proper cities currently with their own 'City Council' i.e. Dublin,Cork, Limerick, Galway & Waterford. When Big Phil is finished with us only Dublin, Cork & Galway will still have stand alone cities; ours are lumped in with the adjoining county.
I'm all for reducing public sector wastefulness, over-staffing, over payment etc. but is this not being perceived in Limerick as it is in Waterford; our cities relegation to the 2nd division???
To compound matters, the regions are to be reduced to 3 based on the new Troika (D,C,G) i.e. no South-East with Waterford as it's regional capital, no Mid-West with Limerick as its capital; where are all the job anouncements?
We lost our IDA director to Cork over a decade ago and the south east is a wasteland for new IDA startups ever since. Isn't Shannon Development being subsumed into the IDA? Do you think decision makers in Cork will give a **** for job creation in Limerick anymore than they currently do for Waterford.
"First they came for the Jews.......
Wake up Limerick and smell the carve up.

The mid-west region has its own dedicated development agency and there are still no job announcements. The way I see it is the current structures have already failed both the city and region. It couldn't get much worse.

mitresize5

In many peoples opinion the actions of Limerick County Council have completely destroyed Limerick as a city. You may not be aware that most of Limericks suburbs are actually in the county for administrative purposes i.e. Run by the county council.

This has lead to the county council giving planning permission to various out of town retail parks, which has had the effect of destroying Limerick city centre. The rates from these out of town shopping centres and industrail parks has then been used for the filling of potholes 40 miles out the road in the county.

I dont propose to speak for all those with the citys interest at heart but the sooner they are amalgamated the better.

p.s. Limerick city councilors are pack of waster as well so Im in no way sticking up for them

langdang

Dunmoreroader wrote: »

"First they came for the Jews.......
Wake up Limerick and smell the carve up.

Ah now, limerick is a much more enlightened place now than 1904. Or did you mean that Cork people came for your Jews? I think they just preferred cork to be honest. Jewish mayor and all like.

Dunmoreroader

Sorry kilburn, do you mean I'm crazy or the situation the way I see it is?
langdang, sorry again if my "First they came for the Jews" reference was a bit oblique, read this; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came...
It's about doing nothing about the plight of others coz you think you're all right until they come after you.
We have a highly centralised government and an economic development policy based on Greater Dublin getting the Lion's share with Cork & Galway cities also getting looked after. Though you have a University and usually a minister in Cabinet in sucessive governments to give Limerick clout(unlike Waterford city - still no university status despite decades of lobbying & 1 govt. minister since state was formed; Martin Cullen) I still see this as a further marginalisation of your city and mine. It's just another act of a government that pays lip service to balanced regional development. When's the last time you heard any of them mention the National Spatial Strategy? Hubs anyone??
So back to my original analogy with a bit of poetic licence;
First they came and shafted Waterford - I did nothing, I wasn't from Waterford,
Then they came for Limerick.........
geddit?
Ok maybe I do sound crazy but I've witnessed the slow decline of my home city Waterford through lack of interest and investment from central government for decades and I now see lots of similarities in Limerick. Cherish your City status my mid-western friends - these things DO matter.:(

langdang

No, it wasn't oblique at all, I was basically saying you were reducing your credibility by using that argument (I'd regard it as a subset of Godwin's Law) to say "hands off our abundance of councilors". Considering the contrast between Limerick and Corks treatment of Jewish citizens in the past, it's especially tragic to use it here as a call to action for Limerick people to prevent those nasty Cork people claiming all of Munster...

kilburn

I was talking about your comment on the jews

Dunmoreroader

Steady on lads; goodwins law?? I had to look that up and that's not where I was going, mind you Big Phil is a Blueshirt isn't he:)
Anyway i did already agree that we could all do with less councillors, public sector waste etc. etc. but the theme of this thread was about loosing your city council which equates to loosing your city status I.m.o. Which is a different arguement.
Continue to be sanguine about the loss of your city status, I'm off back to the Waterford boards where we're spitting about it!

ninty9er

The only issue I have with the merger is that it is a merger and not a dismantling of 2 Councils to be replaced with a more efficient one.

I'd prefer Limerick City, Limerick County, Tipp North, Clare and Kerry County councils to cease business on a nominated date making all employees redundant, then one GA established for the Mid-West hiring a significantly smaller staff than the previous councils. There will not be one redundancy arising from the merger which is my main problem with it!