Local government changes: Monumental reform going under radar

HUMANITY has just passed a threshold that took several millennia to reach — for the first time more people live in cities than on the land. Homo sapiens are irreversibly urban — or suburban — and it is very hard to imagine that trend slowing in what we describe as normal circumstances. 

A growing world population — up from 3 billion people to something not very far short of 10bn in less than 60 years — can only add to that momentum.

This evolution means that around the world cities are expanding as never before and rural populations may be declining. That evolution has meant that urban administrative areas expand to incorporate neighbouring areas once administered by rural authorities. This see- sawing is sometimes managed well, other times not so well but it always has a profound impact on communities. Some feel empowered, others feel diminished and marginalised.

Last January, Environment Minister Alan Kelly appointed a statutory committee to review the Cork City boundary and other local government arrangements in Cork. When he made that announcement Mr Kelly said he saw a clear case for extending the Cork City boundary to create a wider metropolitan area.

That may have been an inappropriate indication to a committee tasked with coming to an independent conclusion after its review, but it is impossible to withdraw it. Mr Kelly appointed the group to review boundaries between Cork city and county and examine whether the local authorities should be merged.

This review is part of a programme of local government reform which has introduced changes in Tipperary, Limerick and Waterford and which has seen many town councils disbanded.

The instinct of optimists is to believe in possibility, to believe that the amalgamation of authorities might mean a stronger, leaner, more influential, energetic, pro-active and can-do entity. Many in our nation’s business community believe that amalgamation is the way to introduce efficiencies and economies of scale to local administration, despite clear and repeated warnings from expert academics that there is absolutely no real-world evidence for this.

Those of a more sceptical bent, those who’ve been around the block a few times, see amalgamation as a way of taking power from their community and concentrating it in the hands of inaccessible, anonymous and unaccountable bureaucrats.

They see merged authorities as diminishing local democracy and centralising power. Apart at all from the practicalities of a merged authority anything that exacerbates our dangerously low levels of political participation must be questioned forcefully. We cannot afford to alienate any more people from our public affairs.

Though the amalgamate-and-concentrate theory is dazzlingly attractive, our experience with mergers is disastrous. The Health Service Executive, a behemoth that replaced 10 regional health boards, is the strongest possible argument against centralisation. Established more than a decade ago it is almost a byword for mismanagement, poor delivery of services and seemingly uncontrollable costs.

The latest shotgun wedding in our public life — Irish Water — was set up to replace local authorities’ water services. Risible political incompetence played a huge role in this circus and the quango’s difficulties cannot be ignored. It is incredible and unnerving that its chief architect, Phil Hogan, is now, as EU Farm Commissioner, responsible for Europe’s food security.

It is tragic too that a project that should have been a catalyst for great cultural change was, and continues to be, so terribly botched. Once again this calamity showed there is no relationship between performance and reward in our political life. The amateur-hour planning that preceded its establishment will probably haunt the agency for decades to come. It has certainly almost fatally undermined it.

Whatever the outcome of the local authority review in Cork, it is critical that lessons from the past are learned and that it is the correct and proper decision for both city and county. It is a pivotal project, probably the most important of its kind in half a century, yet it has almost gone unnoticed.

While there has been a process of public consultation, the project has gone under the public’s radar and there has been no public debate. For something so important, something as open, transparent and basic as a public hearing should surely have been part of the process?

The committee reviewing arrangements in Cork will report in time and its conclusions will have an impact across the region. Any new arrangement must be a workable agreement between all involved. Achieving this will require honesty and generosity. Local administration needs to be reimagined and reformed, but local democracy must prevail.