Letter to the editor

John O'Donnell

Issue 393, vol.99, Spring 2010

This is a symptom of the lack of local control. There is a clear need to bring some services close to the people served, so that the people can influence directly the type and quality of services delivered. The services include not only roads, sanitary services, planning and so on, but also those others that contribute to local well-being, such as education, welfare, and aspects of health. Let the Health Service Executive (HSE) or its equivalent deal with the major acute hospitals, but consideration might be given to taking local hospitals, clinics and other such facilities under the control of local authorities. However, other major reforms are necessary to enable authorities to face problems and opportunities of the modern world, reforms in the areas of boundaries, finance, and administration. Current reforms contemplated by the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government (EHLG) fall short.

The Local Unit

The changes introduced into Local Government in the nineteenth century (which form the basis of most local boundaries outside Dublin until today) were aimed at establishing a land-based ascendancy over towns. The administrative boundaries of most self-governing towns were reduced. Thus, for example, Cork City lost its Liberties, which extended from Carrigrohane to Little Island. Extensions of urban boundaries have tended to be miniscule, mostly reflecting change that had already taken place. The ascendancy of rural interests has had real consequences: the political interference in planning decisions is most notable in rural authorities; the failure of North Tipperary, Clare and Limerick County Councils to consent to extensions to the boundaries of Limerick City have contributed in no small measure to the problems of that city, with its concentrations of council housing and the migration of its middle classes to rural areas. Local authority boundaries need to be urban-focussed. The town of Birr, for example, should include its rural hinterland, although a case can be made for rural authorities where the urban structure is weak. While there is little logic for a relatively massive authority such as Cork co-existing with a small authority like Carlow, a solution based on a reduced number of largely rural-based authorities is likely to perpetuate defects of the present system, namely central control and defective planning. Some reformed authorities on the Western seaboard may continue to be largely rural but, where urban structure is well developed, the town and its hinterland need to be integrated to allow local people who access local services to have control over those services. There are almost fifty towns in the State with a claim as a dominant provider of local services. In some cases, a dominant town may have satellite towns and villages; in others, an authority might have a more complex structure of settlements.   

Financing local authorities

Ideally, money required to run local services should be raised locally, but there is little prospect that the existing €4 billion plus could be raised in this way, not to mention the additional costs to the system if some education and health services are brought under local control. A land tax is one source of possible revenue, but only under the most unacceptable scenario could it be a total source of funds.

To be accepted, such a tax would have to be universal, i.e. apply to all land. Central government would need to accept responsibility for all State property and to pay the tax due in respect of social housing not tenant purchased. A tax would need to support planning objectives, while encouraging the efficient use of land. The tax should reduce the burden of business users in central locations, while penalising profligate use, largely on the periphery. The tax would operate to discourage the assembly and hoarding of land, which the rarely-used derelict sites tax was intended for. A land tax would have to operate a system of differentials for broad categories of land, but the basis for such exists in the work done by Teagasc on soil quality and in land/house sale prices. Differentials and setting of rates could be the function of a revived Land Commission. Charges for services are possible revenue supplements; all sources would be subject to a system of dispensations to cater for hard cases.

Administration

Local authorities at present operate many of the services provided on a dispersed basis, so that staff implications for a system of town based authorities would not be very great. The idea of a greater number of authorities brings to mind the possibilities of a multiplicity of “Ballymacgash” councils. The number of councillors on each council needs to be reduced. Certainly, it is an agonising experience to have to endure listening to thirty-plus individuals make the same, usually trite, point, often even without the reward, for the individual councillor, of notice in the local press. However, the essence of local control is political control. Mayors should be elected directly as such and heads of services appointed from the elected members. Elections should be more regular and frequent, to bring more accountability. Managers’ powers should be reduced and focussed primarily on day-to-day administration. Members would continue to have debating and legislative functions, but numbers should be greatly reduced and might be expected to support decisions of council as voted or resign.

Overall, numbers employed should decrease if efficiency increases, as the work to be done remains the same. Some functions now exercised by central government would transfer to local government, resulting in a reduction in staff numbers employed by central government.

Conclusion

The ideas set down here are intended to provoke discussion. Any substantial change could be introduced progressively, as indeed the present management system was introduced.

The aim of reform is to give local people more control of, and responsibility for, local services. Without inclusion of checks and balances, including reference to codes of administrative practice, the system might become corrupt and unjust (reverting, for instance, to Dickensian parsimony). While it would be impossible to guard against human folly and mistakes, the system should provide accountability to an electorate and retribution for the guilty.

A new local political system could balance clientism with responsibility and transform politics. It is accepted that an intermediate regional system, representative of local authorities, responsible for say major regional and national roads and major river catchments, would be necessary. Resistance to change in local government could be expected from the Department of Finance, reluctant to give away power to local authorities and fearing the economic consequences of mistakes by ordinary mortals. In the words of a former department secretary (pre-dating ‘secretary generals’) “there are no first-class minds in local government”. This arrogance is characteristic and has been shown for its worthlessness in the ruinous direction of the national economy.     

 Yours sincerely,

John O’Donnell

(Former Cork City Planning Officer)    1^st January 2010