This article appeared as an opinion piece in The Irish Times on 7 May 2014
Robert Flack once wrote, ‘Local
Government is the foundation of democracy. If it fails. Democracy will fail.’
Unfortunately the foundation of Ireland’s democratic system is a neglected area
of study. Local elections in Ireland are somewhat of a mystery to the general
public who perceive that the local government system itself and its structures
are complex. Many people do not understand this system or what the local
authorities actually do. It is therefore not surprising that local elections
are either seen as unimportant or irrelevant. This apathy is shared by large
portions of the media who opt to analyse local elections merely in the context
of what they mean for national politics.
The strongest argument for local
government is as an organ of local democracy, whereby councils of elected
members make policy decisions on behalf of their local communities. Powers are
not retained at central level by national government but are held and
maintained by the citizens of each community. Therefore, as well as local
government being a means of self-expression, it also serves as a safeguard
against central government domination. The spreading of power is a fundamental
justification for local government, the argument being that it is dangerous to
concentrate power in one organ of the state. Local government also stresses
diversity and, for this reason, some of the academic literature refers to it as
the ‘government of difference’. In its role as a mouthpiece of shared community
interests, a local authority can factor an area’s history, geography, political
culture and economy into its decision-making processes.
Regrettably, the Irish model of
local government is far removed from the version of community self-government
just described. In this country, local government is centrally controlled and
is becoming more and more removed from the citizen. Successive governments have
prioritised central control over local democracy and have exhibited a
consistent lack of respect for sub-national government. This lack of respect
was highlighted by a Council of Europe report in 2013 which strongly criticised
Ireland for its lack of constitutional protection for sub-national government.
Seanad Éireann, a marginally relevant institution, could not abolished without
reference to the people by way of referendum. Yet, a whole tier of local
democracy and 83 directly elected councils, can be removed through legislation
without reference to the people.
The Council of Europe report was
also critical of the direction of Ireland’s local government reforms. It
commented that the policy paper Putting People First from October
2012 praised decentralisation in spirit but did not provide many concrete
stapes in that. Rather, the report noted, some of the actual steps proposed
went in the opposite direction and would result in increased centralisation. Most
of the provisions of Putting People First came to legislative
effect through the Local Government Reform Act 2014, which – amongst other
things – abolished all of the country’s town councils and created amalgamations
in Waterford, Limerick and Tipperary. Therefore, since the introduction of the
‘modern’ system of local government in 1898, we have moved from over 600 local
authorities to 114 and now down to 31 – with minimal debate along the way. We
have also casually removed a level of local democracy and have moved from a
two-tier system to a single-tier system. This seems a far cry from the vision
Fine Gael presented in its 2010 New Politics document which stated,
‘The over-centralisation of government in Ireland is, in our view, inefficient
and fundamentally incompatible with a healthy Republic.’ Thus we can conclude,
with increased centralisation, our Republic is very ill.
The justification for the
abolition of town councils, the most accessible level of our local government
system, is that big is better and more efficient. Unfortunately for Minister
Hogan there is very limited evidence to support this assertion. In fact, the
international evidence tends to refute the notion that a smaller number of larger
local authorities yields improvements, savings and efficiencies. Instead the evidence from other jurisdictions that have
been down this road clearly points to the fact that structural reform and the
redrawing of local authority boundaries is not a cost-free exercise and
frequently results in dis-economies of scale, especially with one-off costs
arising from amalgamations.
The
Minister was correct that change was needed at the town council level but he
has opted for amputation over reform and an opportunity has been squandered. Town
councils have been the most efficient element within the local government
system in terms of being self-financing and maintaining commercial rates at a
lower level that their county council counterparts. Removing the rating power
from towns will lead to an increase in commercial rates for the hard-pressed
business people in the towns of Ireland.
Town or municipal
councils should be at the heart of our local government system. The very nature
of local government is that civic society is up close and personal. Local
councils and the services they provide have a far more immediate, continuous
and comprehensive impact on our daily lives than many issues which dominate
nationally. Local councils and councillors have to deal with a range of
issues and factors that are not of their making and for which they may have no
formal responsibility. These issues include migration, multi-culturalism,
homelessness, social exclusion and other social problems such as drug
addiction, prostitution, and petty crime. Many of the social problems faced by
Irish communities today are most sharply evident in urban settings and towns.
Sub-county authorities should be strengthened to address these problems.
Instead they have been destroyed.
Government policies which promote centralisation
over local democracy will not serve Ireland well. Have we many centralisation
success stories? Has Irish Water had a good start to life? What about the
student grant scheme operated through SUSI? Has the driving licence process
improved with centralisation? Mahatma Gandhi once stated, ‘The spirit of
democracy is not a mechanical thing to be adjusted by abolition forms. It
requires change of heart.’ The disrespectful way that central government
regards local government has to change before progress can be made. Local
government is not a passing luxury; it is a critical element within any
country’s democratic system which can safeguard against central domination and
absolutism by putting in place a local system of political checks and balances.
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