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Local Government Reform "Too Sharp"
Former Northern Ireland secretary Paul Murphy has said that Peter Hain's announcement that the reduction of councils from 26 to 7 was "too sharp" and that he backed a compromise of either 11 or 15. All the local parties except Sinn Fein backed a similar compromise, with Sinn Fein calling for the 7 council plan.
As far as I'm concerned the proposed 7 council plan is too much. The idea of merging Carrickfergus with Lisburn is ridiculous. Carrick and Newtownabbey, yes I can see the logic - but Lisburn's taking the piss a bit.
Follow up:
The plan also fails to rectify the problem that half of west Belfast remains in the Lisburn council area and the fact that significant parts of Newtownabbey and Castlereagh are at least, if not more, connected with Belfast than the rest of their council areas. However, I've complained about that before so won't go too much into it.
If this is just another in a long line of concessions to the radical elements on each side of the divide then Mr Hain is playing a very dangerous game with our long term futures - especially given that not everyone in Sinn Fein seems to be happy with the plan. Hmmm, I wonder what the next concession to the DUP will be to balance this. Answers on a post card...