Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

Is decentralisation still a cornerstone of Government policy on delivering public services? A report in one of the newspapers at the weekend suggested the Government is considering reducing the number of local authorities to 22. The Taoiseach will recall that his party lost the local elections. I presume he will not do a Robert Mugabe on local government. How does he reconcile reducing the number of local authorities with a policy that has decentralisation as its approach to delivering local public services?

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