FIVE REGIONAL authorities were planned by the last government in a radical reform of local government, Green Party leader and former communications minister Eamon Ryan told the summer school.
The Fianna Fáil-Green Party coalition had been working on a package of reforms that would have seen separate entities for the southwest, southeast, east, Connacht-Donegal and Dublin regions.
The direct election of a Dublin mayor was intended to be the critical “first step” in the process of change set out in a White Paper prepared by a cabinet subcommittee.
The Government had shelved the mayoralty legislation but “they need to do it, if they are serious about local government reform”.
Prof Peter Mair, from the European University Institute in Florence, said parliamentary democracy had existed in Ireland for a longer period than “almost any other country in Europe”.
At the same time, there had been a history of bad governments and poor ministers and the blame for this lay with the voters.
“We don’t respect our State,” Prof Mair said. The State was seen as “the enemy” and an oppressor and this led to the phenomena of “cute hoors” and political “strokes”. This was a common feature in former colonies.
Although the last general election had dealt Fianna Fáil “a hammer blow”, otherwise it ushered in “absolutely nothing new” in terms of real change. Prof Mair said the solution was more transparent decision-making, greater grassroots involvement and a real sense of ownership of the State on the part of citizens.
We the Citizens executive director Caroline Erskine said the project was an independent initiative: “It’s not a movement or an alternative political party and will cease to be at the end of this year.” It had “set out to explore whether our Republic could benefit by citizens coming together in new ways of collective, public decision-making between elections”.
