As indicated here last month 7, 11 or 15? eleven is the magic number when it comes to our councils. I am just heading around to Stormont Castle for what I expect to be Arlene Foster's official confirmation of a DUP-Sinn Fein deal on local government. UUP ministers were irked they only got the paperwork at the last minute, but the two big parties have the votes to push their proposal through. See our main website for the map of the proposed council boundaries.
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Are you trying to say that the only reason Sir Reg and Michael McGimpsey voting against the proposals was that they were presented with the paperwork later than they expected?
11 is certainly an improvement on the 7 council model but with increasing powers going to council why do we need 108 MLAs in Stormont? Surely the logical conclusion is a review of Stormont and the make-up of the Assembly.
Ignited: the only reason we got 108 MLAs was so that David Ervine had a chance of winning a seat. By comparison, the Welsh Assembly has 60 members, serving twice the area and population. I propose a simple solution: Elect three MLAs per constituency rather than six.
three would be a more sensible solution - i agree. however, this would leave 5 constituencies with entirely unionist representation and 3 or 4 with entirely nationalist representation, and as such the 'repartition' as envisaged by some in the 7-council proposal would be replicated in the assembly representation. if peter robinson gets his way, there will be 4 per constituency. and seemingly, 7 government departments (inclusive of policing and justice). this is more suitable for NI, but i can again see a half-way accommodation being reached between DUP and SF i.e. 90 MLAs and 9 departments
Seems my original comment got lost in the bowels of bbc.co.uk. I said something along the lines of:
This is another sectarian carveup. It seems to have been intentionally designed to maximise the disparity between unionist and nationalist headcounts in each council area. Much better to try and balance the demographics and enforce local power-sharing.
What's more, they have almost completely erased the old county boundaries. At least the district councils could be viewed as subdivisions of counties (in most cases). I can't see this Frankenstein system surviving as long as the district councils did...