I'll take my own LEA as an example - but it prolly holds true around the country ...

Macroom LEA now includes Ballincollig (which had formed part of Carrigaline LEA up to approx 2007)

Cork County itself forms approx 10% of the land mass in the Country with approx 10% of the Pop ... and there are a considerable number of Cork County Council LEAs to provide for this (and in addition obviously there are numerous Town Councils in Cork plus of course the different areas concerning Cork City Council).

http://www.corkcoco.ie/co/pdf/489372416.pdf

Anyway, going back to Macroom LEA - the area is huge and extends from slightly West of Cork County Council HQ thru Ballincollig right to the Cork-Kerry Border, extending Northwards above Carriganimma heading for Millstreet and Southwards right down to Enniskeane and knocking on the borders of Bandon Town ....

And there are 4 Cllrs for this entire area
And there is the urban sprawl which is Ballincollig and which now has one Cllr (Derry Canty FG) following the LEA Election and being one of those 4 Cllrs
And there is Macroom Town Council to the West of the LEA with 9 Cllrs

What a crap system ....

This came up on the PK Show a few days back (Myles Dungan was hosting it - it's prob on podcast now on rte.ie) and there seemed to be relative consensus amongst the politicos on board on the show re the concept of having areas broken down into smaller "holdings" with one Cllr being elected for each

This to me makes sense too .... how the fup can you have 4 Cllrs for this entire LEA and yet 9 in a tiny circle of area known as Macroom Town ... and Ballincollig 4ish plus times the size with one LEA Cllr

Local Gov needs radical reform ... 5yrs to 2014 .... time to get off the butt and do something about it