THE last government had radical plans which would have seen Donegal County Council being abolished, former Minister Eamon Ryan told the MacGill Summer School in Glenties yesterday.
Instead all local authority powers would have been transferred to a bigger super-council made up of Connacht counties and Donegal.
In all five regional authorities were planned by the Fianna Fail-Green coalition in a radical reform of local government.
Mr Ryan, now Green Party leader, said the last government had been working on a package of reforms that would have seen other separate entities for the southwest, southeast, east and the Dublin regions.
The direct election of a Dublin mayor was intended to be the critical “first step” in the process of change set out in a White Paper prepared by a cabinet subcommittee.
The Government had shelved the mayoralty legislation but “they need to do it, if they are serious about local government reform”.
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