It might be local but it’s not democracy

THE chairperson of Tramore Town Councillors has informed bin charge protestors that the charges would have been implemented by the county manager regardless of how the councillors voted, and that only a government Minister could overturn the charges.

Why do we need councillors at all if they don’t have a say in local taxation and the county manager, a civil servant who has never been elected, can implement what he wants regardless of the wishes of the elected councillors?

Why should we go through the expensive charade of local elections every five years? All they do is rubber-stamp what the county manager has already decided anyway.

It is more akin to local dictatorship than local democracy. How true the words of James Connolly when he said “governments in a capitalist society are but committees of the rich to manage the affairs of the capitalist class.”

Patrick J Fitzgerald

Leperstown

Dunmore East

Co Waterford