Dublin council sees expanded role in policing, health

Proposals to alter radically the operation of Dublin City Council and expand its influence in the areas of public transport, policing and health are to be presented to city councillors next month.

The proposals, which include devolving current day-to-day business to 12 "outer offices", will see the city councillors deal with strategic planning issues - in conjunction with other service providers in the city. New local area civic offices have already been built at Ballyfermot, Darndale, Fingal and Ballymun, while other areas have had existing town halls refurbished.

The reform package is the brainchild of the city manager, Mr John Fitzgerald, and the new Lord Mayor, Cllr Michael Conaghan, who are determined the city council should evolve its responsibility for city governance.

The Lord Mayor is particularly keen that the council extend its influence into the realm of community policing and he is already working with the Garda on proposals to have a senior garda of the rank of assistant commissioner attend regular council meetings to brief the members of policing issues in the city.

While the Lord Mayor says the initiative is aimed at making the gardaí "accountable" at a local level, Mr Fitzgerald described it as "extending co-operation with the gardaí" to bring the community and the gardaí who police them closer.

Mr Fitzgerald points out that co-operation with the gardaí "already works very well in a number of areas at a local level and this would simply put a structure on that which would be like reporting to a board of directors - in this case our elected council."

The manager is also adamant that the city council should have a pro-active role in public transport, pointing out that public transport has a "huge influence" on physical planning.

Mr Fitzgerald told The Irish Times that the acquisition of Luas was a huge coup for the city and would impact on planning policy for many years.

He believed Luas extensions, new bus corridors and other new rail links should be something in which the city council has a very active role.

The manager said he sees all the transport agencies contributing to a strategy that the city council would facilitate, the details of which would be worked out at strategic council meetings.

He said many members of the council had in the past been "bogged down" in their work on the health board by making representations at health board meetings.

Mr Fitzgerald said the removal of members of the council from membership of health boards ironically left the council free from the "micro-detail" and able to influence the provision of health services across the city.

The manager said it should be possible to have a strategic meeting "say on policing in September, on transport in November, health in December and so on".

Mr Fitzgerald conceded that, in the past, a number of members of the council were frustrated by the agenda of council meetings being occupied by "micro-issues", while proposals for operational change were often not reached on the agenda.

He said he believed the new council, with 33 new members out of a total of 52, represented an ideal opportunity to introduce change.

"I've no doubt that if we fail to change the way we operate, that energy could be lost to us. Now is the ideal time to make progress."