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Strengthening Local Democracy

The Challenge

Labour believes that the best people to plan and manage local services, such as planning for the environment and housing, the amenities that make our local community work, the schools which teach our children, transport and traffic matters, policing, care of the young and of the elderly, should be the locals who use them.

In most European countries, these everyday matters are the concerns and functions of a strong system of local government. Education, health, policing, transport and traffic are normally delivered and overseen by city, county, regional and local authorities.

Ireland has one of the weakest systems of local government in the European Union. Local 'government' does not exist in Ireland. At best, we have a system of "Local Administration", through which centrally appointed managers make the executive decisions for our cities, counties and towns.

All this leaves the individual citizen feeling powerless in his or her own city or county. The net result of Ireland's unique approach to local governance is that the quality of local services is often poor.

The system by which Ireland provides local services is excessively bureaucratic, confused and costly and the citizen finds it difficult to get access to the real decision makers. The lack of accountability results in the unelected management of local authorities being too powerful and the lack of real power for elected councillors is leading to decreased public confidence in local government. Many providers of public services are not accountable at all at local level

Ireland can do better

Labour will radically change the way Ireland is governed. We need a new modern system of local government, which is more democratic, more accountable and which provides a better quality of service to the public.

What Labour will do

Labour will deliver a major reform of local government and devolve further functions from the national to the regional and local levels under new structures to ensure democratic management of these services.

• Labour will strengthen the role of the elected council, in order to provide the citizen with accountable public services. Councillors will have power to seek accountability from any agency, whether public or private, which is providing public services in their area. Councillors will have power to seek reports from service providers and to question, in public, the appropriate managers on aspects of their service.
• Councils will also have a consumer protection role in relation to private sector services. Private refuse collectors, telecoms, private schools, local banks and cable TV providers will be amenable to public questioning by the elected representatives of the people, on their public service remit.
• Local government in Ireland needs to be remapped. The remapping will be based on the wishes of the people and will be preceded by public consultation.
• There will be two levels of local government: Regional Authorities, which will include City Authorities for the larger cities, and Local Authorities, which will include County, Town and District Councils. The City and Regional Authorities will have responsibility for:
• Strategic Planning: a democratically decided Regional or City Plan will replace Strategic Planning Guidelines, which are now handed down by the department
• Implementation of national spatial strategies
• Transport and traffic
• Economic development including Employment Services
• Other functions to be devolved over time.
• Local Authorities will be given, in addition to their existing core responsibilities, a new range of devolved functions together with the finance and resources needed to carry out these new roles.
• We will establish a Dublin Regional Authority, which will have overall responsibility for the running of the city and the three Dublin counties. It will be responsible for transport and traffic, strategic planning, protection of Dublin Bay and for overseeing the services which are delivered Dublin wide. The members of the DRA will be directly elected, headed by a directly elected mayor of Dublin.
• The current Dublin City Council and the three county councils will be replaced over time by 1012 District Councils, based on populations of approximately 100,000, each of which will have the status of a County Council.
• City Authorities will be established for the other larger cities in the country, and Regional Authorities will be established for different regions of the country.
• Devolution of powers will take time. The first responsibility to be devolved to these Regional and City Authorities will be transport.
• One of the first regional bodies to be set up will be for the "ATM region" - Athlone, Tullamore and Mullingar.
• Respecting the principle of subsidiarity the distinction between County Councils and the larger Town Councils will be ended. All such councils will have the same status.There will be options available to people as to the type of Council which would exist in a particular area, as between County Councils,Town Councils and District Councils. Where a dispute arises over the inclusion of an area in a council, the issue will be resolved by plebiscite of the voters in that area.
• The position of County Manager will be abolished and replaced by a Chief Executive of the Council. Chief Executives will exercise a limited range of executive functions, similar to those which were originally intended in the City and County Management Acts. Chief Executives will have no policy making functions other than to assist and advise the elected Council in the making of policy.
• The power of the Minister to abolish a Council and to replace it with a Commissioner will be ended. Instead, where a Council fails to adopt an annual budget, the Council will stand suspended until fresh elections are held to elect a new council for the remainder of its five year cycle.
• Each Local Authority will have a directly elected mayor for the five year term of the Council. Directly elected mayors in the larger authorities will hold office on a full time basis.
• The reorganisation and remapping of local government will be achieved without increasing costs. The devolution of powers and functions from the centre will be accompanied by the corresponding finance and resources. In the longer term, devolution will reduce cost because many of the functions concerned can be performed more effectively at local level.
• Effective regional and local government must be adequately resourced. A redistribution of taxes will be defined as between central and local government, based on the funding framework which is already in place for local authorities.Already some taxes are dedicated for either local government generally, or for services provided through local government. These include rates on commercial and industrial properties, which are levied and collected by local authorities; the Local government Fund which is based on motor taxation; and the Environment Fund which was established with the tax on plastic.
• Rates will be levied on state owned commercial property. There is no continuing justification for exempting state owned commercial property from the rates regime which applies to privately owned businesses.

Labour will radically change the way Ireland is governed. We need a new modern system of local government, which is more democratic,more accountable and which provides a better quality of service to the public.