It must have looked so good on paper.
The new streamlined model for local government in Ireland is now almost a year in operation but its progenitors will be perturbed as they look upon their fledging creation.
For there is a ghost in the machine – or, more accurately, a revenant, a spectre from the dark days of local administration that has come back to haunt them.
At a time when bodies such as Monaghan Co Council should be getting down to their new business of being drivers of community development and economic …