Munster Express Online

South Kilkenny Councillors call for scrapping of Boundary Review

Dermot Keyes reports

South Kilkenny’s County Councillors have called for the immediate abolition of the Government’s Boundary Review, labelling it as a ‘political ego trip’ on behalf of Minister of State Paudie Coffey.
Cllr Eamon Aylward (FF) said the prospect of a boundary amendment between North Waterford city and South Kilkenny ran contrary to the level of local authority collaboration that adjoining councils had established in recent years.
“All this process has served to do is to put up walls again,” he declared at last Wednesday’s meeting of the Piltown Municipal District in Ferrybank.
“It’s unfortunate that an ego trip by Paudie Coffey has brought us to this stage. I really don’t know what his thinking was behind it…but he’s undermining the work that has been done to date in terms of getting the south east working as a unit, and it has to stop.”
Addressing last Wednesday’s meeting, Minister Coffey’s Fine Gael colleague, Cllr Pat Dunphy, said that the longer the process has gone on, “the angrier I’m after getting about it”.
The District Chairperson stated: “When you consider how the recent flooding problem has occupied so much of our time in the past few weeks alone, we’ve spent a lot of time, wasted time as far as I’m concerned, dealing with this (boundary review). It’s been a waste of time, a waste of money and no thought has been put into it in terms of its wider implications…this whole review should never have been put in train in the first place”.
He also said he’s spoken to “a lot of Waterford people about this” in recent months
who didn’t appear too enthused by the prospect of the boundary being amended in Waterford’s favour.
“If you get divisive, and from what I can see, all this could do is cause division between two neighbouring, friendly counties, how is that going to benefit either county or either local authority?” he questioned.
Cllr Dunphy continued: “At this stage in the review, considering the hardly inconsiderable sum of money that I suspect has already been spent on this, we ought to try and put a formal stop to it and ask the Minister (for the Environment) to withdraw the review and stop it here and now, all the more so given the level of submissions they’ll have received from this area in opposition to any amendment of the boundary. With that in mind, I simply see no point in this continuing – this is not going to happen….
“I’m just so annoyed about this childish carry-on and who knows, maybe us intervening like this, as public representatives of the area, might lend to some common sense prevailing and this issue being done away with in its entirety.”
Cllr Ger Frisby (FF) echoed his colleagues’ sentiments stating it was unfortunate that the “money, time and effort” that had gone into this process had not been devoted to other, more pressing and relevant issues.
“You’re asking one area to take over another area when the people living here just don’t want this to happen. I just can’t understand it. We’ve had this going on for 800 years in this country, trying to impose rule on people without their consent.
“That approach hasn’t led to much success and I just can’t fathom why this ever came up in the first place…there’s not a whole lot coming from Waterford about all this. This has been a pure solo run, a political stunt and it has to stop now before this issue costs any more and goes on any further.”
Cllr Tomás Breathnach (Lab), whose brother Jack Walsh is a former Mayor of Waterford, repeated his refrain on co-operation, and cited meetings which the Piltown District held with Waterford’s Metropolitan Area and the Carrick-on-Suir District on the same day in December as proof of increasing collaborative levels.
“We had WIT representatives at our last (full) Council meeting, along with Carlow IT and we’re due to have Frank O’Regan from the Regional Economic Forum, who is due to address us on regional issues. The whole thrust of our campaign in the past few months has been on promoting a regional approach while respecting each other’s identities and I believe that this is the best way forward for the south east.”
Public submissions on the Boundary Review were accepted up to last Friday’s (January 15th) deadline, while the Boundary Committee is due to meet with Kilkenny’s TDs in Leinster House today (Tuesday).
The Committee is due to submit its report to the Government by no later than Thursday, March 31st.