Many of the bright ideas that Mr Snip has recommended have neither been popular or practical in the eyes of the public and the most recent announcements in regard to saving government resources are equally unpopular it seems.
The idea that Kilkenny and Carlow Local Authorities might merge is a pretty frightening one for many reasons.
Firstly, I should point out that I do believe that money and resources could be better used within the local authorities in some cases. However, the merging of the two counties can only mean bad news (and longer waiting times ) for us the people dependent on the authorities for the dissemination of our taxes.
When you look at the inadequacies that already exist in certain departments one can only wonder how these will be improved by less staff, less management and less people on the ground — and all to be shared between two counties.
It’s only romantic to believe that the re-structuring of the local authorities, which would see less staff and more work, could be of benefit to Kilkenny.
Already we have huge waiting lists in our housing department for example. What is going to happen when the staff in the housing department are told that they have an additional county’s housing list to deal with on top of what they have had to deal with to date. This may seem simplistic but for the restructuring to have any effect, there will need to be job losses and the council is already working on reduced resources following several layoffs in recent months.
Planning is another area that lacks resources although I don’t think anyone would disagree this department could do with an overhaul.
Funding would pose further problems. Would funding come from the local government fund be specified for Kilkenny roads and Carlow roads or would the county manager (of the two counties ) have to decide which county needs it more?
There are several technical difficulties attached to merging the governance of local authorities that would need to be ironed out, however, the one person who would probably be quite comfortable with the idea is our own county manager Joe Crockett.
Mr Crockett was already the county manager in Carlow prior to having taken up the position in Kilkenny and he is seen as having personally overseen the redevelopment of the town and its retail development for the better. Of course the merger would mean a doubling of workload and a much bigger responsibility — not something that Mr Crockett seems to be afraid of. But then there are some county managers who would simply lose their jobs along with several senior members of staff — afterall there would only be a need for one director of service for each department and there is currently one in Carlow and one in Kilkenny...
Of course, the positives for the merger are the fact that Carlow-Kilkenny is already one constituency area from a political point of view. We also share a radio station. Never the twain shall meet in sport but not everything rides on sport.... in Carlow!!
So it is going to be interesting to see how Mr Snip’s idea is approached by our government. Will they take the plunge and go for a merger — or maybe they will just take the medical card off those who need it most — sure that would probably produce a quicker return!
