‘HATCHET TAKEN TO LOCAL DEMOCRACY’

THERE have been mixed reactions to proposed boundary changes in Bray, with the Labour Party calling it ‘the butchering of Bray’, while independent councillor Joe Behan has welcomed the ‘borough’ status for the district.

The local election boundary review commission report was published last week.

‘Currently the Bray local council area is represented by eight councillors who sit on the Municipal District Council and Wicklow County Council,’ said Labour representative Ian McGahon. ‘The proposal is to split this into two four-seat electoral areas where the town of Bray will only be represented by four councillors. ‘Bray needs and deserves better than this,’ he said. ‘The current local government structure is the result of a failed experiment and this proposal makes it worse by butchering Bray. This is an anti-democratic unaccountable taking a hatchet to our local democracy here in Bray.’ The Labour party is calling for Bray Town council to be reinstated.

Cllr Joe Behan said that the committee decided to designate Bray and its surrounding area as a Municipal Borough. ‘This creates the possibility that our town will regain some of the powers it lost in the disastrous decision by the last Government to abolish Bray Town Council,’ said Cllr Behan.

He called on powers over planning, housing and finance to be returned in full to the new Bray Municipal Borough Council.

‘The decision to split the district into two local electoral areas is an administrative issue but doesn’t change the fact that candidates will still have to secure a sizeable number of votes to be elected,’ he said.