Sir, – In July, the Council of Europe’s Congress of Local and Regional Authorities (CLRAE) produced a draft report on local democracy in Ireland, in particular the extent to which we are honouring our commitments to the European Charter of Local Self-Government. The charter, an international treaty of the Council of Europe, outlines the principles to underpin local government in Europe. The principle of subsidiarity is the major one – this requires that public responsibilities should be exercised by those authorities which are closest to the citizens, and that local authorities should manage a substantial share of public affairs under their own responsibility.
CLRAE’s draft report in July followed two monitoring visits to Ireland which took place in April and May, led by rapporteurs Vladimir Prebilic (Slovenia) and Gunn Matt Helgensen (Norway). Two previous monitoring visits to Ireland took place in January and March 2001 and in October 2012 and May 2013, leading to hard-hitting reports about the state of Irish local democracy. The 2013 report was especially scathing. It said that policies relating to local government in Ireland contained the rhetoric of subsidiarity, devolution of functions, and the transfer of power to the people but the reality was that we were moving in the opposite direction. This largely referred to the divisive Putting People First policy document which led to the abolition of Ireland’s town councils and the overall reduction in the number of local authorities from 114 to 31, ie the antithesis of the principle of subsidiarity
The intervening 10 years have not improved the situation. The 2023 CLRAE draft report was light on praise but it did note with satisfaction that local authorities strive to remain strongly connected to their citizens and that they “provide services of good standard”. The report also contained the wish that the establishment of directly elected mayors would have a positive impact on the Irish system. The country’s first direct mayoral election will take place in Limerick in 2024, a full 23 years after we first legislated for these positions to be created.
However, CLRAE expressed concerns about many aspects of our local democracy, starting predictably with the fact that we are “far from complying with the principle of subsidiarity” and that central government retains control over many functions which could be devolved locally. Depressingly the draft report noted: “There are no signs that central government supervision is about to be relaxed” and “the range of responsibilities handled under local self-government is clearly fewer that in most European countries”. As in the 2001 and 2013 reports, the system of local authority financing was strongly criticised due to the limited range of own resources which councils can use. In this regard, the conclusion was that that we do not meet the charter’s requirement of adequacy. Local government spending as a percentage of total governmental spending is typically around 8 per cent in Ireland; the EU average is 23 per cent and, in Denmark, it is 64 per cent.
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Turning to regional government, the draft report notes with regret that Ireland’s regional assembly members are not directly elected (to the regional level) and, accordingly, there is no mechanism of accountability between citizens and the assembly members.
In conclusion, it is evident from the CLRAE draft report that local government remains the Cinderella of the political system in Ireland, undervalued, underappreciated and suffering from undeserved neglect. The vice-like grip of centralisation, which continues to suffocate local autonomy, has to be loosened. Only then can we truly explore the rich capacity of sub-national authorities to make even more valuable contributions to the social, economic and cultural development of their communities. Hopefully, the next CLRAE report in 10 years will be a positive one. – Yours, etc,
Dr AODH QUINLIVAN,
Senior Lecturer,
Department of Government and Politics,
University College Cork.