Far too many County Councils in Ireland

In Ireland we have 32 Counties, but the 6 in the North have their own local government structure

For the remaining 26 counties we have 34 local government councils and 8 town councils.

What do they do? Well not much if you compare their functions now - with what they were responsible for managing.

Once there were Health Boards, managed by councils, now the HSE handle that. Once education was a responsibility: now the Department of Education have that role. Since 1990 the NRA look after our national road network, and councils are out-sourcing waste collection. Planning is local but an Bord Planeala adjudicate on all the top level developments. The EPA has the role of judging if planning and projects are environmentally friendly. The new Water Board will be responsible for water distribution and production.

The councils then will only be responsible for: local planning, public parks and car parks, libraries lurban sewage and local roads (Pothole Filling).

I think now is the time to ask : are all these councils and town councils value for money? The answer of course is no. Damn bad value in fact, we get no value for the bucks they cost, and miserable value for the bucks they squander in a variety of ways.

So my suggestion is we need 4 regional councils, Dublin, the rest of Leinster, Munster and Connaught/Ulster. That's it in a nutshell.

By the way the Greater Manchester Area has a population of 2.6 Million and the area is managed by 10 Metropolitan Boroughs.