The Mayor of Clare today described the proposal to create a single elected Mayor for the ‘Metropolitan Area’ of Limerick/Shannon as “unworkable”.

The proposal was today outlined in the Government’s Green Paper on local government, ‘Stronger Local Democracy - Options for Change’.

“The purpose of the Green Paper is to provoke discussion and debate and the suggestions put forward are, therefore, deliberately radical”, Mayor McCarthy stated.

She explained, “The suggestion of a Mayor for what the Green Paper refers to as ‘the metropolitan area’ of Limerick/Shannon is unworkable and does not make sense in practice. People closely identify with their local area and a Mayor that crosses county boundaries is not a positive development.”

“Despite being opposed to the notion of Metropolitan Area Mayors, I do appreciate that the Green Paper is a consultative document and is targeted at generating discussion and exploring ways and means of reforming the local government system”, Mayor McCarthy continued.

She added, “I welcome the emphasis and focus on the role of the elected member and the clear desire to enhance the decision-making powers of Councils with a particular focus on the role of a directly elected Mayor. The approach would seem to be to try out the concept in a number of local authority areas before rolling it out on a wider basis, which is a sensible approach.”

Meanwhile, Mayor McCarthy expressed disappointment that the Green Paper did not contain any recommendation to upgrade Shannon Town Council

“Despite this set back for the Town Council, I am determined to pursue at Clare County Council level a negotiated settlement for Shannon to ensure an improvement on its present very limited range of functions”, concluded Mayor McCarthy.

The Mayor of Shannon expressed his frustration at the lack of any proposal to upgrade Shannon Town Council.

Councillor Sean McLoughlin said, “It is important that a local authority in County Clare’s second largest town and industrial centre is afforded the opportunity to have control over such matters as planning, environment and housing.”

“Though I am disappointed that no proposal to upgrade Shannon Town Council has been included in the Green Paper, I do welcome the suggestion that devolved functions should be agreed between county councils and town councils. A key requirement is to improve the decision-making role of the town authorities. If this can be achieved through such a mechanism it will be positive development for the town areas”, Mayor McLoughlin concluded.

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