Empty promises - A mockery of so-called reform

For a relatively small population, we have excessive government that has been strangling our economy.

Fine Gael promised to do away with the Seanad. If it was sincere, it could have put the issue to the electorate promptly after the last general election. But was it all just empty blather, like so many of the other promises?

The present government is promising the greatest shake-up in local government for over a century. Eighty town councils are to be abolished. The current 1,627 local government seats are due to be reduced to 950, which amounts to a reduction of 42%.

Cutting those should save money, but the number of local government seats in the greater Dublin area is actually being raised from 130 to 183, which amounts to an increase over 40%. How can this be justified, either politically or economically? It makes a mockery of the so-called reform.

Dún Laoghaire/Rathdown County Council, the membership of which will increase from 28 to 40, will have to build a new chamber, at a cost of about €800,000, to accommodate the extra members, who will cost a further €668,052 in their first year.

The population in the Dún Laoghaire/Rathdown area did go up in the last census, but by less than 7%, so how could that possibly justify increasing the size of the council by 42%?

Some think that this is just a political stroke dressed up as reform — another ploy to fool people in order to lead them. It has also been suggested that the whole thing is designed to pump up the Labour Party in Dublin because it is looking at the mother of all beatings in the next general election. They are preparing the grounds to harvest a whole new crop of Labour councillors to replace the TDs likely to lose their seats next time out.

Look at what happened to those who propped up previous Fianna Fáil governments — the Progressive Democrats and the Green Party. Both parties were exterminated at subsequent elections. Indeed, Fianna Fáil was almost wiped out itself in Dublin in the most recent election. Surely the message in all of that is that there is a price to be paid for treating the electorate with political contempt.

Boosting the number of councillors in Dublin might enhance the chances of sitting councillors retaining their seats. But anybody who thinks that such a ploy will help the Labour Party as a whole could be in for a very sad lesson, because the whole thing could be interpreted as a gross insult to the intelligence of the electorate.

Fine Gael and Labour should remember 1977. They were in coalition together when the late Jimmy Tully of Labour was responsible for the so-called Tullymander designed to ensure the coalition’s re-election.

The whole thing became political disaster, when Fianna Fáil romped to its greatest majority.