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 Phil Hogan (above) there is very limited evidence to support this assertion. Photograph: Alan Betson
Robert Flack once wrote: Local government is the foundation of democracy. If it fails. Democracy will fail. 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.
In its role as a mouthpiece of shared community interests, a local authority can factor an areas 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 ireann, a marginally relevant institution, could not be 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 Irelands local government reforms. It commented that the policy paper Putting People First from 2012 praised decentralisation in spirit but did not provide many concrete stapes in that. Rather, the report noted, some of the 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 among other things abolished all of the countrys 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 Phil Hogan there is 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 identifies that structural reform and the redrawing of local authority boundaries is not a cost-free exercise and frequently results in diseconomies of scale, especially with one-off costs arising from amalgamations. Reform noticeable by its absenceThe 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.
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We have casually removed a level of local democracy