A chara, – Paul Gillespie writes (“Local politicians are overworked, underpaid and unrepresentative”, Opinion & Analysis, November 30th) that “Irish government and bureaucratic mindsets are so centralised they cannot see how blind they are to the advantages of multilevel governance.”
This is not simply a case of blindness: both groups have a deeply entrenched hostility to the very notion of strengthened local government.
While our parliamentary representatives are ostensibly elected to perform the function of legislators, very few of them see this as their primary function. This is obvious from their almost total absence from the Dáil chamber when proposed legislation is supposedly being debated. Rather, our TDs see their primary function as acting as intermediaries between powerless local communities and the all-powerful central state bureaucracy. The transfer of power from the centre to local government would therefore be seen as undermining their essential raison d’être, hence their fundamental opposition to any such move.
Similarly, decentralisation would mean a reduction of the powers of our central state bureaucracy, and all bureaucracies are inherently opposed to any moves to weaken their authority. We therefore have what is essentially an unbreakable coalition in opposition to decentralisation involving the two most powerful arms of the State apparatus – parliament and the central civil service.
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Paul Gillespie writes: “It would be welcome to see stronger local government and democracy become a red line for coalition formation by those who take it most seriously.” The problem is that very few of those involved in the process of forming the next government take the idea of stronger local government seriously. – Is mise,
PROINNSIAS BREATHNACH,
Maynooth,
Co Kildare.
