DIRECTLY ELECTED MAYOR FOR DUBLIN

We have been around the block a few times with the issue of introducing directly elected mayors into the Irish system of local government, starting with Dublin. The 2001 Local Government Act stated that direct mayoral elections would start in 2004. However, the Government did a u-turn on the issue and reversed the decision via legislation in 2003. In 2008, the Green Paper on local government reform again floated the idea of directly elected mayors but the Green Paper never saw the legislative light of day. Now we are here again courtesy of the Local Government Reform Act of 2014.

 

I have always had reservations about directly elected mayors but I am not necessarily against the idea. The current controversy about the four Dublin local authorities having to endorse the proposal to allow Dubliners to vote on whether the capital should have a directly elected mayor is an unfortunate one. A significant obstacle has been put in the way and, if the Minister had the power of his convictions, I think he would have gone directly to the people rather than creating an obstacle. The indications are that Fingal County Council could block the initiative at its meeting on 31 March. In a way this would be a pity as I think if the matter was put into the hands of the citizens then we might finally have a proper debate on the issue.

 

For example we might usefully look to the UK where some cities have moved away from the mayoral model back to the traditional council-CEO model. Renewal of interest in local government was one of the main motivations for the introduction of directly elected mayors in the UK. However, evidence to date shows that public interest and involvement have not increased. Ultimately it all comes down to what powers a directly elected mayor of Dublin would have. Directly elected mayors with strong powers (especially the 'strong' variation in America) can make quicker decisions and cut through much of the traditional internal local government democracy.

 

Overall, this is a complex issue and it warrants proper discussion and debate. Below is the conclusion I wrote to a journal article in 2008. I feel the points contained in it remain relevant.

 

Conclusion

(from my 2008 article, 'Reconsidering Directly Elected Mayors in Ireland: Experiences from the United Kingdom and America', Local Government Studies, Vol. 34, No. 5, pp. 609-623).

The direct election of a mayor for Dublin in 2011 is expected to herald the extension of the system shortly afterwards to the entire country. The one lesson Ireland can learn from the United Kingdom is that it is essential to create a clear, unambiguous mayoral model. The arrangements introduced in the UK offered too many options and, as previously mentioned, suffered from a ‘double handicap’ as the office of city/county manager did not previously exist. The main lesson to be learned from the United States is the importance of clarifying relationships. As a political figure with some executive powers the Irish mayor will have to work closely will both the legislature (council) and the executive (manager). The devil is in the detail and unless the Irish legislation clearly outlines the division of executive powers with the manager, there is a danger that the office of mayor will be an empty role.

 

The local government system in Ireland needs urgent reform and the introduction of directly elected mayors is only one element of that process. The starting point must be devolution of powers and financial autonomy from central government to local authorities. This would allow mayors and councillors to exercise their reserved policy powers and work in partnership with a professional manager. Whether the mayors in question are directly or indirectly elected is a secondary consideration.

Details on Local Elections 2014

Minister Phil Hogan today signed the 2014 Local Elections Polling Day & Spending Limits Orders. Friday 23 May is the polling day between the hours of 7:00am and 10:00pm.

 

Tuesday 25 March is the day from which spending limits for the local elections apply. Depending on the population of the local electoral area concerned, the spending limit for candidates will either be €13,000, €11,500 or €9,750. These figures are reduced from the 2009 local elections when the top limit was €15,000.

Power of Veto for Councillors

The Irish local government system has traditionally operated a corporate model with the county/city manager accountable to the elected councillors who in turn are answerable to the people at election time. In theory this equates to the relationships between a CEO (City/County Manager), a Board of Directors (elected councillors) and the shareholders (electorate).

 

Under the local government Management Acts, the functions of local government are divided into two classes – Reserved Functions, performed by the elected members and Executive Functions, performed by the City/County Manager. While the law tries to make an exact division of functions, it was never the intention that the elected members and the Manager should operate independently of each other. The fact that the executive functions are assigned to the Manager is simply intended to provide the elected council with an experienced, whole-time administrator for the prompt and efficient discharge of day-to-day business without making an undue demand on the time of the elected members. The Manager is ultimately an employee of the local authority, appointed by the elected members (on the recommendation of the Public Appointments Service) and he may be suspended by them or removed from office with the consent of the Minister of the Environment, Community and Local Government.

 

The elected council is responsible for all policy decisions and the Manager must act in conformity with the general policy laid down by them. In carrying out his duties, the Manager operates under the general supervision of the council. The power-sharing relationship between elected members and the Manager is at the heart of understanding local government in Ireland. The perception among very many councillors is that the power in Irish local government is skewed towards the Manager. Other councillors will readily admit that they have passed power to the Manager in a number of controversial areas due to their unwillingness to make difficult decisions.

 

In producing the Local Government Reform Act 2014, Minister Phil Hogan has sought to re-address the balance of reserved/executive functions in favour of the elected councillors. The title of City/County Manager is to disappear and Chief Executive Officers will replace it, thus re-enforcing the corporate model mentioned above. Section 54 of the Local Government Reform Act 2014 deals with the new post of CEO and the section runs to nearly 10 pages.

 

The main change being introduced is in relation to the appointment of the CEO. It has always been the case that the elected members formally appointed the Manager but they were obliged to do so, i.e. the legislation stated that the council shall appoint the candidate recommended by the Public Appointments Service. Intriguingly, under the 2014 legislation, councillors are being given veto powers. Within three months of having received a recommendation from the Public Appointments Service, the council must meet and decide to appoint or not appoint the person recommended. If the council decides not to approve the appointment, reasons for such a decision must be furnished to the recommended person.

 

It is interesting to tease through some of the ramifications of this veto power. Previous legislation insisted on the fact that the elected members had to appoint the recommended person so as to avoid political influence in the process. The new legislation brings the appointment of CEO firmly into the political arena which may not be wise. Of course, a strong argument can also be made that the Board of Directors should have a key role in deciding who their CEO will be.

 

Will the new veto power have a damaging impact on candidates from the private sector applying for the role of CEO in local councils? After all, winning through a competitive process organised by the Public Appointments Service and then being rejected by the elected council is not a very attractive proposition for outside candidates. While the council’s vote on the appointment of a CEO has to take place in a closed session, it is highly probable that details of the meeting will emerge and the credibility of the rejected candidate will suffer.

 

Other than the veto power, there is little in the Local Government Reform Act 2014 to suggest that the role of CEO will be any different from that of Manager. The act continues the trend of previous legislation by listing the reserved powers of councillors and simply stating that ‘every function which is not a reserved function is an executive function.’ Maybe the new CEOs need greater clarity than that?

 

Dr Aodh Quinlivan is a lecturer in politics at the Department of Government in University College Cork, where he specialises in local government. Twitter: @AodhQuinlivan

Let's stop pretending this is a local property tax

Cork Inndependent, 7 November 2013

 

Really, it was depressingly predictable and we should not have been in the least bit surprised. After all, we have been here before. I refer to the recent announcement by Minister for Finance, Michael Noonan TD, under Section 57 of the Finance (Local Property Tax) Act 2012 that - ‘Receipts from the Local Property Tax received in 2013 will remain in the Exchequer to meet the many expenditure obligations by the State.’ None of the money, zero per cent will be coming back to local government so let’s stop pretending that this is a local property tax. It is anything but. It is a tax which is being collected centrally and being kept by central government. Where exactly is the local in that? It was Benjamin Franklin who famously said, ‘Certainty? In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes’. He might usefully have added, ‘In Ireland nothing is certain but death, taxes and centralisation.’

Irish local government suffers from all known forms of centralisation – functional centralisation whereby local councils are given a very narrow range of powers; administrative centralisation whereby most activities of local councils still have to be approved by Dublin; and financial centralisation whereby central government continues to tightly grip the purse strings. Alexis de Tocqueville was right when he wrote, ‘Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details.’

The story of the Irish property tax has an eerily familiar feel to it. We just need to think back to the disgraceful political auction that was the 1977 General Election. Fianna Fáil swept to power with a landslide majority, partly on the back of a promise to ‘abolish’ domestic rates. The promise from government was that it would pay directly to the local authorities the amount of money they would otherwise have collected through domestic rates. The ‘slight’ problem was that government could not afford to keep the promise (even if the political will existed to do so) as it was broke. Initially, government paid the local authorities a support grant in lieu of the domestic rate monies but in 1983 legislation removed responsibility from the minister to meet the full amount of the money lost. Local councils began to receive less and less money, a situation from which they have never recovered. The domestic rates abolition has interfered with the local democratic process, curtailed local accountability, weakened local discretion, reduced the amount of money available to local authorities and made local government more dependent on central government.

Since then we have had a bewildering myriad of reports on the topic of local government financing all of which broadly reached the same conclusion – for local government to prosper, autonomous locally based sources of funding were required. If local government is to have any meaning (and central government is hell bent on making it meaningless) then there has to be a link between local revenue raising and local expenditure. In 2008, the OECD looked at local government financing in Ireland, as part of an overall review of public service, and concluded, ‘Ireland has limited local financial autonomy which, in turn, strengthens the input-focus of national policies.’ This is a polite way of saying that Ireland is too centralised.

The Council of Europe went further in its recent report on local democracy in Ireland, stating, ‘The scale of real local taxes and the freedom to set their rates appear to be very limited. During the economic crisis, the financial resources of local governments have decreased, but the volume of their responsibilities has remained the same. Local governments have the formal freedom to adopt budgets but such freedom is severely limited in practice.’

In theory a local property tax (if it was genuinely a local tax) could offer councils some financial independence and this may evolve over time. However, as mentioned at the start, the first signs are not encouraging with central government greedily keeping all of the 2013 monies for itself. Even if we move to a situation where property tax income is returned to local councils, who will decide on how the money is distributed? The answer is central government. The current method of distributing money from the Local Government Fund to councils is a more closely guarded secret than the Coca Cola recipe. The Council of Europe tried to find out but could only conclude, ‘the mechanism is not transparent.’

Minister Phil Hogan’s current plans are designed to remove the local from local government and I am amazed that the local business community in Cork’s towns are are not up in arms about the prospect of paying higher commercial rates once town councils are abolished. Ultimately it all boils down to two things – power and money. C. Wright Mills noted that, ‘Prestige is the shadow of money and power.’ Local government institutions will have no prestige, no status and no legitimacy with the public unless they have power and money. I won’t be holding my breath.

Typology of Irish Local Election Candidates

Liam Weeks and I produced this typology for our 2009 book, All Politics is Local: A Guide to Local Elections in Ireland. It is drawn from responses from 505 local election candidates in Ireland. Our research indicates the presence of a number of different types of candidates at local level.

1. THE ASPIRANT - Someone who is not that interested in local office, but who sees is as a useful route to national politics.

2. THE LOCAL BROKER - Someone looking to represent and fight for the interests of his or her local community.

3. THE POLICY-MAKER - Self-explanatory; someone who wants to develop local policy.

4. THE LOBBYIST - A candidate running to promote the cause of an interest group.

5. THE ACTIVIST - An individual who enjoys politics and likes to devote time to it.

6. THE LOYALIST - Someone not particularly keen on electoral office but who runs because of a party request.

7. THE PROTECTOR - Someone who runs because of familial links to a politician, either to maintain a tradition of family representation or to 'protect' a local seat when a relative transfers to the national arena.

8. THE DISSIDENT - This candidate's motivation stems from falling out with an organisation over an issue, be it a party or a local community group.

9. THE MAVERICK - His/her presence in the electoral contest is unpredictable and can be the product of idiosyncratic factors.

For more detail on the Weeks and Quinlivan Typology of Local Election Candidates (2009), please go to All Politics is Local: A Guide to Local Elections in Ireland, published in 2009 by The Collins Press.

Lack of female politicians in Ireland is a growing concern

The Guardian, 23 January 2014

By Aodh Quinlivan and Fiona Buckley,

One of the most disappointing aspects of the current local government reform proposals in Ireland is that the issue of gender equality has not been taken seriously. The government’s Putting People First proposal document pledges to promote and assist women candidates at local level by arranging meetings at family-friendly times. While this practical step is to be welcomed, there is clearly scope for much more to be done. For example, Ireland passed gender quota legislation in 2012 via the Electoral (Amendment) (Political Funding) Act which provides for a 30 per cent quota of women candidates at the next General Election (rising to 40 per cent seven years later). Political parties who fail to comply will lose half of their annual state funding. This legislation however only applies at national level and it has not been extended to the local government arena which is a shame as the under-representation of women in local councils is a recurring theme in Ireland. At the last four local elections in Ireland women have taken 12% (1991), 15% (1999), 19% (2004) and 17% (2009) of the available seats. At the last local elections in 2009, there were 312 women candidates, representing 17 per cent of the total number. In other words, 17 per cent of candidates were women and 17 per cent of council seats were won by women. This clearly indicates that there is no electoral bias against women – the problem is that not enough women are appearing on the election ballot papers.

 

It is worth noting that the main political parties have put in place informal gender quotas for the local elections of May 2014, and currently, women account for just over 24 per cent of the total number of candidates selected (see http://adriankavanaghelections.org/). Only time will tell if this has a positive impact on the actual numbers of women elected, but there is some cause for optimism that the national gender quota legislation is promoting greater levels of women’s participation at the local level too. There is a logic to the political parties using the this year’s local elections to recruit, train, promote and run women with a view to having them ‘election-ready’ for the next General Election, scheduled for 2016. Given the personalism and localism inherent in Irish politics, local government experience is particularly critical to one’s chances of selection for General Election. Developing a local political base and gaining the necessary experience at local government level are very important in terms of being viewed as a credible candidate for national parliamentary elections. Research indicates that this is especially true for women who are statistically more likely than men to win a national seat if they have already served at local level (see Buckley et al -http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2305119). However, future opportunities for women’s electoral success at the local level will be shaped by the changes that result from reforms to Ireland’s local government system.

 

The Putting People First proposals (contained in the Local Government Bill, 2013) envisage a 73 per cent reduction of the local councils (from 114 to 31) with the complete abolition of town councils. The corresponding reduction in council seats will also be dramatic with a fall from 1,627 to 949. A decrease in the number of council seats will, of course, mean fewer opportunities for men and women to gain local government experience. In terms of advancement to the national parliament, this may hurt women more than men because, as mentioned above, local government experience has been found to be a more critical factor for the election of women to parliament (in comparison to men). It is also the case that there are more women at town council level than at city or county council level so the abolition of this entire tier of government removes the most accessible entry point for women into the political sphere.

 

Aodh Quinlivan and Fiona Buckley are lecturers in politics at the Department of Government, University College Cork. Aodh specialises in local government while Fiona is a specialist in gender politics. 

Irish councils fight back against cuts with jobs, tech and collaboration

Aodh Quinlivan
The Guardian, 13 November 2013

Local authorities in Ireland, from Cork to Dublin, are leading the way doing more with less to aid economic recovery. Irish councils have suffered more than any other part of the public sector during the economic downturn. Since 2008, staffing levels have been reduced by 24%, central government funding has decreased by approximately 36% and other sources of income have been decimated. Despite the difficult financial climate, however, they are fighting back and playing innovative roles in economic development and recovery. Below are some examples of incremental innovation; some are radical and systemic but all exhibit the relentless pursuit of improvement in public services, the tailoring of services to individual and local needs and value-for-money. A simple but effective example of tailoring services for people is Cork City Council's award-winning Library Link Service to the Household. The library's home delivery service for people who are housebound due to old age or illness has improved the quality of life for a significant number of people. On a larger scale we have Dublin City Council's Rediscover Furniture and Paint Recycling Project. The council set up this project as a community employment initiative. Donations of furniture and paint are accepted which might previously have been destined for landfill. The furniture is restored and the paint re-potted with the products then being sold at the Ballymun farmers market, at environmental events and through Rediscovery Centre. The project has been highly successful in providing training and employment opportunities for the long-term unemployed; it also offers low cost, high quality environmentally sustainable products.

 

It is in the area of supporting enterprise, local development and economic growth that Irish local authorities are excelling, as shown by a report from the County and City Managers’ Association. The report highlights that in 2012, the 34 city and county councils offered financial support for 465 local festivals and events; and there were 141 actions for 'Creating an Entrepreneurial Environment.' The positive support role played by councils in labour activation is regularly overlooked despite there being 1,200 participants in 2012. There are numerous good news stories in the area of enterprise and employment supports. Mayo County Council has invested substantially in major tourist infrastructure through the Great Western Greenway project. The Greenway has already helped to create a total of 38 new full-time jobs and a further 56 full-time jobs have been sustained. Cork County Council has established a joint initiative with the Nimbus Centre in the Cork Institute of Technology (CIT), Mallow Town Council, and Mallow Development Partnership. The aim of the initiative is to create a real life test bed in Mallow, county Cork, for a stream of products which have been laboratory tested in the CIT. This is leading to an enhanced testing infrastructure and environment in Mallow which it is hoped will lead to products from other third level institutions and companies being tested there. Cork City Council hopes to promote the city as a global technology hub and a location for foreign direct investment. With this aim in mind, the council collaborated with Cork Chamber of Commerce, University College Cork, and Cork Institute of Technology to create the Irish Technology Leadership Group (ITLG), which brought the Silicon Valley summit to Cork in January 2013 and the event was heralded as an enormous success.

 

South Tipperary County Council is working with locally based craft workers and has established The Tipperary Craft Granary. The council provided the use of the granary free of rent and offered the new startup company an exemption from commercial rates. The Tipperary Craft Granary is now flourishing and employs 12 people. An enormous amount of activity is taking place and collaborations between local councils, third level educational institutions and the private sector are especially strong. It is also worth pointing out that local authorities are demonstrating innovation in spite of showing great restraint in setting commercial rates. Councils have been freezing or reducing rates since 2008 and are leading the way in 'doing more with less'.

 

Aodh Quinlivan is a lecturer in politics at the Department of Government in University College Cork – @AodhQuinlivan.

Austerity plans could see Ireland scrap 83 councils – but will it help?

Aodh Quinlivan and Yannick Cabrol
The Guardian, 21 October 2013

An OECD report in 2008 on Ireland’s public services highlighted the fact that over the period of 1995 to 2007 (the so-called ‘Celtic Tiger’ years) public sector employment rose sharply, primarily in the areas of health (up 73%) and education (up 42%). Excluding health and education the increase in employment was 5% - low in comparison to a 45% rise in the overall labour force. The local government sector was one part of the public service which did not see massive increases in employment levels or in its budgets during these 13 years – yet, it has suffered the most during the economic downturn. Since 2008 local councils have seen staff reductions of 9,000 people (or 24%) and nearly one billion euro (17%) has been cut from the outgoings of local authorities. The Government is now proposing to initiate even deeper cuts.

 

In the Putting People First policy document of October 2012 it was announced that further cost savings of €420 million will be sought. Local councils across the length and breadth of Ireland are at breaking point in trying to preserve a decent level of front-line services from a significantly decreased revenue stream. Veteran Dublin city councillor, Dermot Lacey, notes, ‘The cut backs have put a huge strain on the ability of the council to deliver services, particularly in the housing area. Social housing programmes have been abandoned and so we are seeing ever-lengthening housing lists’. Despite the pressures imposed through harsh economic realities the local government sector has responded speedily to the state’s financial crisis. Significant efficiency gains have been made without commercial rates being increased. The primary innovations initiated by local councils to achieve greater efficiency have come through changed workplace practices, shared services, depot rationalisation and process reengineering facilitated through ICT and online service delivery. Shared services are seen as key to not only achieve efficiency gains but also to enhance the quality and range of services available to citizens and businesses.

 

Shared service projects are being developed through individual business cases in the areas of payroll, human resources, ICT/back office and accounts payable. Innovation through technology is also bearing fruit and, for example, South Dublin County Council recently launched SOURCE, an online service which both archives and provides access to digitised history and heritage materials. SOURCE is the world’s first linked double digital archiving project based on DSpace Open Source software. It is also the first multi-file type digital archive developed or implemented by an Irish public library service. The headline act of Putting People First is the proposal by Government to reduce the number of local councils in Ireland from 114 to 31. This is to be achieved through the complete abolition of all town councils (Ireland will be reduced to a one-tier local government system) and mergers and amalgamations in Limerick, Waterford and Tipperary. Already, Ireland has the second most disconnected system of local government in Europe in terms of the number of councils to population and the population per councillor (second to the United Kingdom). It is difficult to reconcile removing 73% of the existing councils, creating even greater distance between the citizen and the council and calling it Putting People First. While Councillor Lacey supports aspects of the policy document, he believes that the key challenge ‘is to break forever the strangulating control of the Department of Environment, Community and Local Government in the Custom House’.

 

However, there is little prospect of this happening. A draft Council of Europe report from February 2013 entitled ‘Local Democracy in Ireland’ concluded, ‘The new policy paper (Putting People First), although it praises decentralisation in spirit, does not appear to provide many concrete steps in that direction. Some of the actual steps proposed go in the opposite direction’. Regrettably, there is next-to-no debate in Ireland about local government but any discussions which are taking place are being swamped by a particular narrative which arrogantly states – BIG is better; BIG is cheaper; BIG means improved services; BIG is more efficient. These claims are being made in support of abolitions and mergers in spite of the fact that international evidence refutes the notion that a smaller number of larger local authorities yield improvements, savings and efficiencies. Instead the evidence from other jurisdictions that have been down this road points to the fact that structural reform and the redrawing of local authority boundaries is not a cost-free exercise and frequently result in dis-economies of scale. Since 2008, austerity has been the only game in town in Ireland and in terms of local government we are witnessing a programme of rationalisation, cost-cutting and reductionism disguised as reform.

 

Aodh Quinlivan is a lecturer in politics at the Department of Government, University College Cork.

Yannick Cabrol is a former Economic Development officer at Waterford County Council.

Welcome to LOCAL DEMOCRACY MATTERS

Welcome to my new blog, 'Local Democracy Matters'. As its name implies, not only will I be discussing matters concerning the local level in Ireland but I will also be arguing that local democracy actually matters. We live in very challenging times for local government in Ireland and the 2014 'reform' act radically changes the structure of the system. The lack of debate around Minister Hogan's proposals has been shocking and I hope that this blog will at least provide a vehicle for discussion and comment. We are in danger of wiping out entirely what remains of local democracy in Ireland in a pursuit of centralised power. I believe that the centralisation of power is a dangerous thing. As Lord Acton famously proclaimed, 'Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.'