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This article was updated on 27 April.
GARDAÍ HAVE STOOD down a search for a missing 21-year-old man following the discovery of a body in Dublin.
On the morning of Saturday 23 April, Gardaí issued an appeal to the public to help trace the whereabouts of a 21-year-old man, who had been missing from his home in Finglas since Wednesday 20 April.
Gardaí said that the man’s family and Gardaí were concerned for his welfare.
In an update issued at 6.37pm on 23 April, Gardaí said that following the discovery of a body in the Ashtown area, the missing person appeal for the man was being stood down.
The man’s body was found on the River Road area of Ashtown.
An Garda Síochána thanked the public for their assistance.
Good response and fair points William. The benefits of strong local government are apparent. The argument against local government is that in Ireland it’s too incompetent. That’s the trouble with all government in Ireland, and is something we need to fix.
The problems you outline require a radical change to our government, politics and public service that is independent of whether or not we opt for localism and subsidiarity in government versus highly centralised government.
We need a transparent government with higher standards of accountability in any event.
Thereafter there are tangible benefits to more local control of government through democratically elected mayors or councils. More local decision making about local problems, not decisions made by mandarins in Dublin 2 (who, today, are just as efficient as you outline in many regards.) In business I leave it to middle and lower managers to run their show with good structures in place. In government we have models from across Europe, the US and other locations of local government operating at levels below 200,000; 100,000 and smaller districts.
The essence of your argument is that we don’t have the talent to run our local government properly, particularly if given more power. I’d argue that we don’t have a system of government at any level today that puts true talent in charge, but with other reforms I believe localism can be a very positive thing.
All that said, we do agree on the fundamental point I think – That government really isn’t that capable or efficient today, and one way or another that needs to change.
I’m glad you saw what I didn’t, and I have to say I found your reply easier to read. When it starts getting into the unnecessary “*hyperbole impossibility* could do better” I switch off and find it discredits any real points the author makes.
Aaron, thanks for your reply.
While you are right that other countries have local authorities “operating at levels below 200,000; 100,000 and smaller districts”, I am not aware of any international equivalent of a primary-tier local authoritiy with fewer than 9,000 inhabitants, such as Kilkenny Borough Council. There are also plenty of local government units around the world that are larger than the whole of Ireland.
The issue is giving services at the appropriate level. There is nothing about the taxi service in Limerick that required it to have an entirely separate regulatory service to that in Cork, and another for each local authority in the country. But that localism did expose the service to the influence of very serious corruption, and commuters suffered for decades as a result.
There is nothing about a computer system for managing penalty points that required it to be set up separately in each LA area; doing it once nationally is simply far more efficient.
You say that you, wisely, delegate responsibility to middle managers in your business, and by analogy advocate the same for government. But I suspect that you have, say, a manager for sales, one for HR, technology, purchasing, and so on.
I think that if you appointed one manager for all sales, HR, technology and purchasing, based in Leitrim, and another for sales, one for HR, technology, purchasing based in Longford, and replicated that throughout the country, you would go broke.
There is no rational reason to organise these geographically, and certainly no reason to think that long-outdated boundaries (Kilkenny ‘City’ 9K, Fingal 450K) are a rational basis for organising services such as processing student grant applications or issuing driving licences.
The problem with our local government is that it is too local (why does every county need a big administration) and is responsible for stuff that should be centralized due technological advances, e.g. motor tax renewal.
This is a fine article. The amount of waste and inadequacies I’ve seen over the past 6 months alone between my local town council and the county council of the neighbouring county where I work, is beyond belief!!
They don’t seem to be accountable to anybody and I know from the horses mouth, from a LA member that they spend money on nothing in the last Quarter of the year just to use up that years budget to make sure they get the same again next year! What a disgraceful process and abuse of taxpayers money!
To top it all,last night I joined in the campaign against the household charge, outside the local authority meeting as 2 independent councillors put down a motion for the council to officially oppose the tax. The 250 plus passionate but peaceful crowd required no interjection from the Gardai in attendance even. Yet this morning, 3 of the councillors went on public radio denouncing the campaign and called the crowd ‘thugs, head-bangers and fascists’ .. All because the protesters chanted outside during the meeting and heckled the government party councillors on the way into the chambers! How pathetic are they!! They also bemoaned that the household charge had nothing to do with them as it was a national issue…these guys are pathetic.
Great article….. I agree why does every county or town council need to be able to do everything on an individual bases. I think they should provide basic essential services like water, sewerage and general maintenance. There is so much duplication within the 96 town and county councils it’s a joke.
Another point is that I know first hand of a corrupt town manager…. And have been thinking about how best to catch that cheat out as he didn’t even ask me tender once he received no brown envelope from me for recent works completed….
Any suggestions on how best to catch him will be taken on board.
Now finally I’m self employed and do work for local councils time to time. I have a gripe with them in the past where by they have experts in there office to draw up and implement traffic control plans. Ok this has a small cost associated with it for them. But my point is why do I and all other companies tendering for work have to be experts in so many areas unrelated to the actual job to be in a position to tender for the works.
They could provide the traffic plan. They have that expertise in house already. I wouldn’t need to do all these unrelated courses which cost a fortune. And in turn then i could reduce my price accordingly for the service they provide. seems logical to me but not to them.
Pass him a brown envelope and record it
I agree ten men to did a hole 9 to watch and one to hold the shovel….
Oh dear Journal. I enjoy a good, properly researched, well argued article even if I don’t agree with what it says. But this is just a rant. Apart from the gratuitous insults – “monkeys with typewriters” come on! – some of it just proves there was no research done to back it up. Driving tests and penalty points? Nothing to do with local authorities. Both administered by the RSA. And 1 in 3 entries wrong on the register of electors? Where is the evidence for that? I’m not a councillor, I don’t work for a council. I think they need reform. But this badly written nonsense doesn’t help and distracts from the real issues.
Wondering why you ‘like’ Meath Co co on your FB page. An LA fanboy by any chance?
>>1 in 3 entries wrong on the register of electors? Where is the evidence for that?
The evidence for that is in the news story that I linked to on that exact sentence. Again: http://www.rte.ie/news/2006/0305/register.html
>>Driving tests and penalty points? Nothing to do with local authorities. Both administered by the RSA.
The responsibility of maintaining the penalty points database was given to the LAs when they were introduced, and they handled it chaotically badly: http://www.independent.ie/national-news/penalty-points-system-in-chaos-as-gardai-call-tds-for-advice-127201.html
The previous year-long waits for driving tests only improved when the LAs were stripped of much of their functions in this regard.
i propose four super councils, Munster/Connaught/Leinster and Dublin. Reform the Seanad and elect a reduced Senate, have them responsible also for the hiring/firing of managers. Do away with mayors and have one in the senate, have the senate holding the four super councils to account and its budget. Even if it were the best idea in the world, politicians wouldnt do it. Because the cartel they work under now, is jobs for the boys. The only way reform will happen, is when there’s a rebellion like the french one. Heads must roll, the ones we have now are corrupt!
What happened to Ulster?
Ulster tv is also a joke considering it leaves out 3 county’s.
Should be called almost UTV
We could also have Munster tv
Connaught tv
Leinster tv
Then we could set up the ‘real UTV’ and include everybody!
The Ulster Counties belonging to the ROI, can be put with Leinster and Connaucht. Do I have to think of Everything, Isn’t Enda being over-paid for this job?
Why is the City Manager still walking around and not put in jail? He is responsible for buying over 25 apartments in Priory Hall from the developer while his company was under investigation by Dublin Ciry Council for failing to comply with building regulations on uuanother site. He handed over 5 million to the developer and didn’t even inspect the properties. I bet he viewed and inspected his own home at least 3 times before he handed over the money. Yet he handed over the taxpayers money without a second thought for the people who would have to live there.
The council are a joke, run by people who live on another planet, we are the aliens to them shower of money wasters.
Wexford LA recently finished spending €70million on their new offices, why, how and where is the sense in that…
Wow. Ranty ranty rant-rant-rant.
I would expect concrete proposals of alternatives, not useless trolling hyperbole like “nags” and “knacker’s yard”
Please, journal, less of this style of sh1t. I’m sure there’s a coherent point somewhere in this, but I can’t find it. I hate this kind of writing and I want to see less of it.
William is 100% correct.
The authors job is not to deliver proposals. That’s the job is the inept LA’s.
The purpose of this piece is to point out the ineptness
Love this! A perfect expression of what so, so many are thinking!
I’d have to agree with the thrust of the article. Almost everything they do is problematic. Dublin City Council’s handling of the handover of domestic waste collection to Greyhound was a shambles. I don’t think 4 super-councils would be a solution. Getting the functions of the local authorities into some accountable structure is essential though.
And yet the government has placed these incompetent organisations at the centre of its jobs strategy. Clueless comes to mind.
Dreadful piece. Poorly written hyperbole. Local councils need reform. However once clientelism and the influence of the private sector is removed, and laws put in place to severely punish those who would use local councils to enrich themselves and their cronies half the work will have been done.Then increased funding can be put in place in order to provide enhanced local services and boost employment in the provision thereof.
Cork County Council in my direct experience is a place where reform of even the most basic functions (like using email and websites properly) is strongly discouraged. The wasteful purchasing of unused and incorrect equipment is astounding.
Athlone spent €200k implementing a one way which crippled the town, brought traffic to a standstill and was eventually overturned by councillors following a petition by townspeople. However the town and county managers just won’t accept the will of the people and are spending a fortune buying up CIE land to fulfil their vision while refusing any applications to do up the main street in the town until the one way gods ahead. The sooner we are rid of these unelected, unaccountable, autocratic, overpaid civil servants and power goes back to people elected locally the better.
I would highly recommend the author’s book “Here’s How” by William Campbell. If only 10% of his common sense proposals were implemented we would have a vastly improved society.
Unfortunately with the political system we are encumbered with (turkeys, Christmas etc), I think it will take a benevolent dictator to solve this country’s woes.
The cheque’s in the post Ger!
Take a look at the Priory Hall facebook page – Support the priory hall residents – to see a perfect example
Exactly!
Great article – I’m in the catchment area for Dublin City Council and I’m not lying when I say they’re the biggest shambles of an organisation I’ve ever seen.
There is no notion of proactivity or imitative in the way in which they operate – it is all entirely reactive. When you list the massive cock-ups on their part over the years it turns into quite a catalogue.
There is the Priory Hall outrage, firstly. My oh my. We have the bin service handover debacle, then the water rationing debacles during the winters of 2009 and 2010 causes by a neglected water works system failing to cope with cold weather.
Their implementation of a one way system in Dublin has turned the city into a labyrinth of no right turns and bizarrely long journeys. They gave us bilingual street signs in the city centre where Irish and NOT English ( the language that people reading the sign are mostly likely to read) is given prominence.
They also suffer from a degree of organisational philistinism which allowed them to justify trashing a Viking site on Wood quay and build those monstrous headquarters. Recently they ripped up 18th century bricks from college screen and replaced them with cheap imported ones.
We were getting charged for phantom bin lifts that never happened before greyhound came into the picture and we were told by DCC to contact another company to whom they subcontract their billing presumably because the dead wood working inside DCC can’t even get THAT right.
They aren’t fit for purpose. The problem I reckon is that local authority work is BORING and only the dregs of the workforce who arent actually capable of doing anything else end up in this places . To help retain staff , authorities then lavish them with high salaries , employment tenure and other “perks.” They are insulated from the efficiencies of the market place and seem to answer to nobody so they can do whatever the hell they want .
The answer is probably to disband some of them as there is huge amounts of duplication and double jobbing between different authorities but given that they are SO resistant to reform or change , I won’t hold my breath.
Quite a lot of problems with this article and I can’t take it serioucly
It is a lie. LAs spend in excess of €10billion a year, about 20 per cent of all government spending.
I’m not sure where the author got that figure of 20% from at all. The Council for European Municipalities and Regions claim it is 16%.
http://seanoriordain.ie/local-government-around-europe/
As a percentage of overall government spending the proportion is actually quite low compared to a lot of other EU countries.
According to the Department of the Environment, LAs are responsible for:housing, planning, water supply and sewerage, recreation facilities, development incentives and controls, [B]roads, environmental protection, agriculture, education and health.[/B]
LAs long ago lost responsibility for all except the first five items listed.
here – the author seems to be suggesting that LAs have no authority at all in roads, environmental protection, agriculture, education and health.
I’m very confused by this
[B]Roads[/B]
http://www.dttas.ie/roads/regionallocal/index.asp?lang=ENG&loc=2377
Primary responsibility for improvement and maintenance of regional and local roads rests with local authorities.
[B]Environmental protection[/B]
The local authority has an important function in relation to pollution control and animal control. It issues licenses for waste disposal and for emissions into the air from plants. It collects domestic and other waste and it monitors the environment for signs of pollution. It also issues licenses for keeping dogs and licenses for horses within its area.
[B]Agriculture[/B]
Not sure
[B]Education and Health[/B]
Possibly but the LAs do have close links to HSE regional bodies and VECs
There are 90 local authorities in Ireland with planning functions – responsible for creating zoning plans and giving planning permission. The banks, the developers, and the politicians who bailed them out are all getting their share of blame for the bust, but the LAs are getting off far too easily.
It was LAs who made many millionaires by converting farmland into estate after shoddily-built estate, far from employment, inaccessible on public transport, without a thought for schools or amenities for the residents, while vast tracts of inner-city brownfield sites decayed. LAs allowed the slapping up of concrete jungle ‘holiday developments’ that are ugly enough to guarantee tourists will never arrive.
Yes I would agree with this broadly
Even where there is no money to be made in bribes, even when the task is mind-numbingly easy, and vital to our democracy – keeping an accurate list of voters – they can’t get it right. One entry in three on the electoral roll is wrong. Monkeys with typewriters could do better.
A random article from 2006 to prove a point? really? – could the author not have found something more upto date?
LAs report the cost of processing each student grant application – a basic bureaucratic function, implementing a rigid nationally-set formula. In Westmeath it costs €70.51, not cheap. In Tipperary North, it costs €484.25. Such vast variation indicates vast inefficiency.
agreed that this is inefficient – That is why the government is centralising the process and removing from LAs
Water and sewerage is one area where the LAs have genuine power, so many rural residents and tourists spend their summers vomiting cryptosporidium from their taps into their toilets. Everything local authorities touch turns into a fiasco: delays in driving tests, the disastrous implementation of penalty points, a country with fewer playgrounds than golf courses, the list goes on.
As mentioned above – Driving tests and penalty points are not the responsibility of LAs. Where did the golfcourse/playground thing come from?
A classic apparatchik response, if under attack or criticism simply bore them to death. Did you write this yourself or did you get a consultant to do it for you?
Some people don’t like this article, but nobody is pointing to anything the local authorities do well…
What, like being smug because they’ve got ‘safe’ secure jobs lording it incompentently over their local populations. Sorry, but they’ve no redeeming features for me.
my council (kildare) refused to let call in the bond on my unfinished housing estate. Then they let he bond expire and now the developer has gone bust ! End result is we’re been asked to pay a “levy” by our management company (the director of which is the developer) in order to fund the completion of the estate. When we complained to our local authority we were told that it was nothing to do with them!
Kildare coco, don’t get me started….
Up to very recently the planning dept had 75 people working in it. Yes, 75. At a time when there is virtually no planning applications coming in.
The housing dept were very understaffed, and could not cope with the workload and were begging for additional staff for ages before management relented and transferred some over from planning.
What happened then?
The new staff were put at desks and left alone for 3 weeks with nothing to do. Nothing.
Any good people who work in Kildare coco are soon ground down by the atmosphere there.
BTW, motor tax collection is going to be removed from the LAs, and An Post will be taking over. I wonder what will happen to the existing staff?
T
I think that the local authorities should be made smaller and should be made to run more efficiently. One day my husband and I stopped in Navan, and parked the car in a wrong place, and when we came back we got a bill of 40 euros which we had to pay to the local authority, which we thought was excessive, given we were only 10 mins gone from our vehicle.
Sounds like they were very efficient if they caught you parked illegally within ten minutes.
40 euros for 10 minutes? Gosh, were you parking illegally or something?
I’d like to see the dissolution of LA’s. Country can’t afford the luxury of them and all that goes with it. Replace them with 2 new management centres. Problem with that is an awful lot more people will be on the dole. No government will do it. So, William for President!
Management centres in Belfast and Cork?
Local governance is a great theary, but at the minute the local authorities are not fit to tie their own laces. This a problem not only of local councillors but also of the fact that they must deal with the bureaucratic Leviathan that is the Irish Civil Service in order to carry out the “will of the people” (or not as may be the case in dodgy land deals).
There is no accountability or transparency in Irish political life and until we the people DEMAND it then it will not happen.
We have to stop believing we are bigger than Europe or the U.S., that kind of thinking is costing money. A council on every corner, doesn’t work. No matter what changes are needed, this lot won’t bring them in. Do you think for a momentm, that after all these years they are going to bring in reforms at least 50 years overdue. They want things as they are, jobs for the boys and brown envelopes from their friends. We need a revolt like the Arab spring, then get all our eggheads together and come up with a new solution. An improved Ireland, *puts out spliff*!
Agree with Aaron and William. There’s a need for radical reform of national and local government, and local taxation. Clearly there are serious problems with the political culture. Turn-out in national elections in particular remains respectable. But the people who get elected at all levels? Jeez…
Despite the attractiveness of the assertion that Ireland is the same size as greater Manchester and is run like a county council, there must surely be local democracy and local accountability for decisions that effect local communities.
Given that it seemed to be common currency last year to talk about an “electoral revolution” following the change of government, it seems unlikely that we are ready for radical change to this failed political system…
Michael, can you give some examples of decisions currently taken nationally that you feel would benefit from being moved to local authorities?
Kilkenny Borough Council is not a primary tier local authority, it comes under Kilkeeny County Council. It is a city in name only (a special provision was made in the Local Government Act)..
I can only comment on our LA Cashel they are lazy feckless idiots. They put barriers up on 3 disused roads of 20 +yrs only to get the size wrong and have to widen them! A farmer then decides to put a wall up beside one of them and dispite many complaints to LA they haven’t the balls to go up and take it down !
They dump tar on foot paths the contents of their depo on the side of the road. The workers sit in their trucks havng a smoke 40 mins before clocking off time.
The road enginers haven’t a clue and waste money hand over foot badly repairing the roads which are now unusable in places.
Its time this LA where brought to show where their money is being spent and answer to the public by making their accts public.
More to the point if someone writes to them they bother to reply.
Well. How about all decisions should be taken at the most local level possible?
One of the problems with the political system is how seldom people get the opportunity to vote. In other countries there would be some kind of election every year. I know the UK best, so if you don’t mind, I’ll focus there. Local authorities are elected on a rolling basis, like the US House and Senate. So people get to vote on something every year, at parish, town, urban district or county level.
In Australia the national parliament is up for election every 3 years.
In Switzerland there are regular plebiscites at local regional and national level.
Voters are just not accustomed to voting. Maybe this leaves many feeling disenfranchised, leaving space for career gombeen politicians to run the show, more in their own interests than those of the community…
Michael, there have been more than 30 separate national votes since 1990, we are well used to voting.
>> How about all decisions should be taken at the most local level possible?
The question I asked is which functions could be beneficially moved to a more local level?
I have given a slew of examples of functions that are organised at far too local, and are being done badly and expensively as a result. For all the criticism, the most that advocates of LAs can do is wave their hand and say things would be ‘better’ if LAs had ‘more power’. Power to do what?
Can you name even three functions that you think would benefit by being moved from national to local level, and state why?
“there have been more than 30 separate national votes since 1990″. Do you have evidence for this?
This shouldn’t be about power. It should be about democracy, accountable decision making, personal, civic and social responsibility. Reducing it to issues of power and efficiency seems trite. Why would empowering central government make things more efficient. You used the business analogy. Are monopolies more efficient?
>> “there have been more than 30 separate national votes since 1990″. Do you have evidence for this?
Really, arguing about facts that can be checked in seconds is just silly. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland#External_links
>> Are monopolies more efficient?
This is a silly question, Local Authorities are all monopolies in their own area, there is no competition. I have given examples of ridiculous inefficiency and of corruption caused by excessive localism, such as TN costing €484.25 to process each student grant application.
If it is not blindingly obvious to you that it is more efficient for one office, not dozens, process these applications, then there is little point in discussing anything.
You said:
>> How about all decisions should be taken at the most local level possible?
Are you still unable to name even three decisions that would be better made if they were moved from national to local government in Ireland?
Ah William. I share your frustration with the way LAs are run. It’ll need calm rational discussion to get effective change. I can assure you I’m not at all silly.
How about planning, library service, parks, urban environment, waste/recycling managemet, local road maintenance.
On voting, in how many years were there votes since 1990?
One other point William. I was amused to note that we had this conversation on the day that the National Children’s Hospital proposal for the Mater site was turned down by An Bord Pleanála. And there was news coverage about Irish Rail’s proposals to modernise their network. Decades of farcical activity at national government level. Seems to me government at all levels is utterly incompetent. The problem is not really anything to do with the level decisions are made at or administration is done at…
have your say