This article is from page 18 of the 2006-06-13 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 18 JPG
LIMERICK City Manager Tom Mackey has launched a fresh drive to extend the city boundary into southeast Clare.
He is seeking a top-level meeting between the Clare council and the Limerick city and county councils in response to Environment Minister Dick Roche’s appeal for local consensus in advance of any direction from central government on the boundary issue.
Minister Roche made his comment when ruling out Limerick City Council’s boundary extension proposal into south-east Clare.
The three managers met last month to consider the options open to the councils in the context of the Limerick city council’s application for an extension to the city boundary.
Minister Roche said the managers agreed that a suitable exploratory process would be put in place, with the assistance of his officials.
Last month, in his letter to Mr Mackey, Minister Roche ruled out any extension across the county boundary because the attachment local people in the affected area have with Clare.
The Minister said the options that should be explored by the three councils are: increased co-operation on a voluntary basis; formal co-operation across existing boundaries and possible changes to the boundaries between the two Limerick authorities, right up to institutional arrangements which could apply across the whole metropolitan area.
Clare Mayor Patrick Keane (FF) said he would have no difficulty meeting his counterparts from Limerick city and county “provided Limerick city council’s boundary extension application does not feature on the agenda”.
“The two councils have areas of mutual interest in terms of services and promoting development in south-east Clare, but that should be the only purpose of the meeting. The city council still has a clear agenda to extend the boundary into Clare, but there is no question of there being any change or the matter being discussed by the two councils”, he said.
The city council is seeking to quadruple the area of land administered by the local authority from 2,086 hectares to 8,537 by taking 4,380 hectares from Limerick county council and 1,621 hectares from Clare.
Limerick City currently has a population of 54,000 and there are 39,000 people living in the areas that are subject of the boundary extension proposal. Making its case for the extension, the city council state that “no coherent or visionary plan exists for the operation or future development of an urban area of 100,000 inhabitants”.