(published 17th August 2008)<\/em><\/p>\nThe report (News, 10 August) outlining the problems caused by the illogical division of constituencies highlighted problems in Swords. Unfortunately Swords is not alone. The recent announcement of boundaries for the new local government electoral areas offers many more bewildering situations. Given the stated role of local government, these divisions are even more bizarre than those of D\u00e1il constituencies.<\/p>\n
By their very nature, local government areas should be based on natural communities and be designed to bring people together, not divide them. However, in the case of my own new area of Pembroke\u2013Rathmines such logic has been ignored. To the east, the long-established village of Sandymount has been split in two, while to the west, the established community of Terenure is covered by three D\u00e1il constituencies and three local electoral areas.<\/p>\n
One side effect of this is that local residents’ associations, in an effort to remain politically impartial, will end up having to invite up to 14 elected representatives to their meetings in the case of Sandymount and 24 in the case of Terenure.<\/p>\n
Sensible electoral areas are an imperative if we are to enable local government carry out the functions that it is always called on to perform, but by which virtually every action of the so-called Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government blocks us from properly carrying out.<\/p>\n
It is time for a serious examination not alone of local electoral boundaries and constituencies but the need to establish natural and coterminous boundaries for the multitude of public bodies which all operate their own lines of division. Public service demands it.<\/p>\n
Councillor Dermot Lacey<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Editor The Sunday Tribune (published 17th August 2008) The report (News, 10 August) outlining the problems caused by the illogical division of constituencies highlighted problems in Swords. Unfortunately Swords is not alone. The recent announcement of boundaries for the new local government electoral areas offers many more bewildering situations. Given the stated role of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[96,98,26,97,70,25,94,95],"class_list":["post-170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lettersed","tag-boundaries","tag-dail","tag-dublin-city-council","tag-elections","tag-letters-to-the-editor","tag-local-government","tag-sandymount","tag-terenure"],"yoast_head":"\n
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