Dinny McGinley (Donegal South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator for raising this matter on the Adjournment. The action programme for effective local government setting out Government decisions for local government reform was published on 16 October 2012. It sets out the most fundamental reorganisation of local government structures since the current system began in the 1800s. City and county councils in Limerick, Tipperary and Waterford will be unified. There will be extensive change at regional level, with rationalisation of structures and updating of functions. At sub-county level, a new system of municipal governance will be introduced.

This will involve a complete territorial configuration of each county into municipal districts in which the elected members will perform a range of important local functions on a fully devolved basis. The districts will be designed, as far as possible, around existing town authorities and large urban centres which do not currently enjoy municipal status. Overall, the number of council seats will reduce from 1,627 to no more than 950.

On 15 November last, the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government established an independent statutory local electoral area boundary committee to carry out a local electoral area review on which the new municipal districts will be based. The committee has been asked to review and make recommendations on local electoral area boundaries in the context of the results of census 2011 and the action programme for effective local Government, and to report no later than 31 May 2013.

The committee has been asked to consider and make recommendations on the division of each council area, other than Cork city, into local electoral areas, and to make recommendations on the number of members of each council to be assigned to each local electoral area. The terms of reference for the committee are set out in the Schedule to the establishment order. In paragraph 6 of that Schedule, it is provided that the number of councillors representing a local electoral area should typically be seven and not more than ten or fewer than six. In paragraph 7, it is provided that within the county the variance in representation of each local electoral area from the average for the county should, as far as practicable, be within a range of plus or minus 10%. In paragraph 8, it is provided that the number of members shall be fixed at 55 in Cork County Council.

These are the parameters within which the committee will operate for Cork county as regards numbers. There is no specific reference to any divisional structure. However, in recommending changes to local electoral areas, the committee is required to take due account, as far as practicable, of existing local authority electoral and administrative areas.

I understand that the committee has invited submissions to be made by 25 January 2013 so if the Senator has views on local electoral areas in the county of Cork he might consider making a submission to the committee in response to that invitation.