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.'