Carlow Kilkenny Local Authorities or would it be Kilkenny Carlow Local Authorities? Mmmm, there might be a few arguments about that in the future...
But in reality - one of these titles might be the new joint county Kilkenny and Carlow local government authority.
This seems like it might become a reality into the future as it is outlined in the Snip report that the abolition of town and urban councils are almost certainly on the cards. So one way or the other there are some changes ahead for Kilkenny Local Authorities.
County manager Joe Crockett put the borough boundary extension plans on hold for the time being although just two weeks ago (pre-Snip report ) they were to be prioritised. This says a lot as there is no point carrying out research and wasting time and money if it is not going to be put to good use. Mr Crockett obviously believes that there are changes ahead and he has made this clear by asking the members to park the borough boundary issue until more is learned about the implementation of the Snip report and how it is going to affect Kilkenny and possibly Carlow also.
So how would the merging of Kilkenny with Carlow affect us? I’m not sure it would be ideal but on the other hand if we were to merge with anyone I think Carlow would probably be the most appropriate local authority to merge with. We are already a constituency area and we now also share a Garda division.
The main problem that people have with this merger is that we feel like we lose our sense of identity - or that our identity is somewhat diluted. But maybe this may not need to be the case. If it worked that we had one big local authority for the two counties, we would still get to keep a number of local councillors - although maybe not so many (and this may not be a bad thing! ). If we would still keep representation from each area then maybe it could work.
Some might think that this is harsh but I believe that if we could save enough money by scaling down our local authorities rather then taking special needs assistants from special needs children, well quite frankly I think it should be done - whatever has to be done needs to be done to avoid this horrendous and retrograde step. This is a part of the Snip report that will not affect our daily lives and the lives of those who are sick or vulnerable and therefore I think it is one of the proposals that should be implemented before some of the more drastic ones.
Do we really need representation from 26 county councillors and 12 borough councillors all on modest salaries and expenses. We are a small county of about 90,000 at most with 38 local representatives. If money can be saved somewhere surely it is here. Also the administrative costs of running our councils could probably be scaled back if they are merged into one central location.
I’m not saying that this is the ideal - but if there are cuts to be made - maybe this is one of the least damaging.
