A chara, - The Gorey Fianna Fail Town Commissioner, Malcolm Byrne (March 27th), castigates the four independent TDs over their failure to support Noel Dempsey's plans to end the dual mandate, whereby sitting TDs are currently allowed retain to their seats on local authorities. He cites "a real interest in local government".
While I fully support this stance, I would love to know his position on his Minister's latest assault on local government whereby the power to make decisions on the extremely important issue of waste management will be taken out of the hands of democratically elected councillors and given over to unelected officials.
This is a worrying development for our county as 18 out of 19 of Wexford's councillors voted against incineration. However, the county manager is on public record as supporting this hazardous option. Is this what Mr Dempsey meant in his Centenary of Local Government speech, when he talked of giving real power back to local authorities? - Is mise,
John Dwyer, Sinn Fein member, New Ross UDC, New Ross, Co Wexford.