Monthly Archives: November 2007

Naas Town Council to gain 3 extra seats

Posted on by
3

Naas Town Council recently proposed to request an additional 3 seats from the Minister for Environment, bringing its compliment up to 12 councillors. Under the Local Government Act 2001, any town with a population in excess 15,000 may do so. Similarly any town with a population in excess 7,500 may request the creation of a town council, if one does not already exist.

Naas Town Crest

The town clerk requested any interested parties make a submission and being one I did. Please find below:

“Dear Town Clerk,

RE: Proposal to increase number of seats on Naas Town Council from 9 to 12

As you will be aware, local government has its origins in the former British legislation, Local Government Act 1898, which established councils on the basis of then population centres. For the most part those entities have remained largely unchanged ever since despite the obvious population shifts in the meantime.

This has led to a situation where towns of miniscule population (ref Ballybay, Co. Monaghan population 401; 2006 census) have councils whilst many larger towns (ref Kildare town population 7538; 2006 census) do not.

Furthermore whilst local government was recognised constitutionally via the twentieth amendment in 1999, the amendment does not stipulate any minimal ratio of councillors to seats as is the case in Dáil constituencies.

In my view this is a great omission as numbers vary hugely and disproportionately between towns of the same status leaving constituents under represented and councillors over stretched in many cases.

Clearly the precedent exists for 12 seat town councils as the comparable towns of Bray, Dundalk and Tralee demonstrate, Tralee in particular being actually smaller than Naas per 2006 census figures (Tralee 20,288; Naas 20,444).

However I would favour retaining a single constituency rather than dividing into wards as the town is not geographically distributed enough to justify sub-division and I would regard that as an artificial and unwieldy division.

In summary I support the proposal and I commend the council for being proactive in addressing this.

Is mise le meas,

James Lawless

An Rúnaí Oinigh/Secretary
Sallins Cumann Fianna Fáil”

Primetime on Councillors and planning abuses

Posted on by
Reply

I have been beating this drum for some time. Below is a letter I have in the Indo today on the same topic:

“Monday night’s ‘Prime Time’ programme on RTE TV focused on abuses of the planning system, conflicts of interests and the disproportionate number of auctioneers and other land agents holding local office.

Rather than condemning the ancien regime, the programme might have more constructively examined why the profile of local representatives is so.

Almost as stark as the glut of land owners, is the dearth of “ordinary citizens” from these bodies, a direct consequence of the nature, demands and token remuneration of local government.

If Minister Gormley wishes to solve the problem he will have to redress this balance by either paying a full-time wage for what is now a full-time job, or alternatively arranging corporate secondment programmes allowing employees pursue public office without financial loss.

If not, we have stepped back centuries to the point that local governance is once more a landlord’s game.

James Lawless, Sallins, Co. Kildare “

Demographic Deficit of local government

Posted on by
Reply

Amidst all the furore over ministerial salaries of late, it is easy to overlook the great and grave ‘democratic deficit’ that persists at the level of local authorities.

It remains very, very difficult for ‘ordinary citizens’ to take on the role of local office. Not so much getting elected, which is a challenge in itself financially and otherwise, but also the nature and demands of the position once one does make the cut.

County Council business is conducted as an entirely day-time exercise, meetings of committees and sub-committees can stretch into many hours and days each month, all during “9-5″ slots. Very few employments will allow this flexibility to come and go as the council demands, yet the annual stipend remains around €15,000 a year. Allowances and expenses can vary but for most representatives the job barely hits minimum wage.

Áras Chill Dara
Áras Chill Dara, home of Kildare County Council

What all of this means is that certain occupations or the independently wealthy are disproportionately present in local office – the ordinary citizen must hold down a day job which is simply not compatible with conducting council business – particularly now in the modern era of commuting, with increasingly long hours and mortgages and childcare to boot.

And so for the most part, the demographic of local ‘representatives’ remains neither representative of the population or of the real world.

Partition mentality belies Shannon ‘crisis’

Posted on by
2

Saw clips of Eamonn Gilmore addressing the Labour conference last night. In fairness I like the man and he comes across as cerebral and capable.

So it was a disappointment to hear the Shannon guff repeated again. Jack Lynch would never have ‘turned his back’ on Shannon apparently. Fine Gael have been peddling the same line for months too of course.

There are number of arguments here.

Firstly Aer Lingus is a private airline. It would be wholly inappropriate for any government to intervene in commercial decisions.

And if you do the math, there are several route alternatives. Noone that can avoid it wants to go to Heathrow in the first place and there are direct flights to several other London airports.

But the real rub of the matter lies in a sort of regional parish pump and an opportunity for government bashing.

Margaret Thatcher once said “Northen Ireland is as British as Finchley”. Now I’m no fan of the Iron Lady but she knew where she stood.

Well to me, as to any Fianna Fáiler, “Belfast is as Irish as Shannon”.

End of.

Government pay increases

Posted on by
1

A huge amount of attention has been paid in the last weeks to the pay increases awarded to the Taoiseach, Ministers and senior public servants. Although the increase is staggered over a few years so is not quite as bountiful as media suggestion, it is still a generous sum. They have probably surpassed their continental cousins at this stage although the comparison is inaccurate as the Taoiseach does not enjoy the same ‘fringe benefits’ such as Summer Palaces, Country Ranches or Air Force One. (And I’m sure he stands his own round in Fagans..)

They are not the only people in the country to be well paid of course. Many Chief Executives would take home a lot more than the Taoiseach does, in fact many middle ranking managers in some of our financial institutions would make more. And they started from a low base – there have been a number of rises in recent times but this addressed a shortfall that had previously existed. If they started bowing to political pressure and refusing, in a couple of years it’d be back to square one. The independent body probably is the fairest way to manage the system.

To be honest I don’t have a problem with Ministers commanding high salaries. There is some truth in the old adage of paying peanuts and getting monkeys. Yes it is far higher than the average industrial wage. But it is hardly the average job.

The central question as I see it is accountability. Noone should be sacked on the basis of a bad day at the office. The weekly “crises” we read about are in reality storms in a teacup whipped up by media hysteria and mock outrage to sell a few papers. But a little more turnover at cabinet might be no bad thing. John McGuinness and Pat Carey were welcome new additions to the cabinet table recently. But it took too long to put them there. The Taoiseach is a consensus man, avoiding confrontation and has sacked very few Ministers in any of his terms of office. But the people are entitled to expect executive style hiring and firing to accompany the executive style salaries – and even more so now.

De Valera
Eamonn De Valera

On a final note it is worth reflecting the first thing De Valera did on taking office in 1932 was to reduce salaries for his government.