Wanted! Local democracy for Wexford Town. Apply Within

There are few areas of life more subjective than politics. Everyone has an opinion, everyone can tell you what they think might happen.  The intensity of the moment means that when an issue slides out of the headlines and onto the backburner, More than 3 years on from the decision to abolish the local borough council, perhaps it’s timely to look back at what Phil Hogan axed.

Minister Hogan sexed up his abolition with a forecast that abolishing councils would save €420M in the four years up to 2017.  Phil Hogan got his way and then got his free pass to the EU Commission.  However there was little money saved by cutting the number of councils. Quietly the pay bill has climbed.  

What we got was towns run by rurally elected Councillors.  In Wexford just 3 councillors now live in the town as opposed to 12 previously on the Borough Council. To compensate the towns for the loss of their council additional seats were allocated to districts. In most cases these seats went to rural based candidates in 2014. What happened in Wexford was reflected many times around the country. Town voters didn’t see the need to vote for town based candidates. Simple as.

But while the focus is now on undoing the decision to abolish town councils, it’s time to move the debate on. Two things need to be done; a decision on what population is required to support a town council and what powers are to be given to these restored bodies.

It’s unlikely that restored councils will have the same number of seats as previous. If that were to happen, then County Council’s could possibly lose some of the extra seats allocated in 2014. That might not be a bad thing as 31 councillors in Wexford all wanting to contribute on an issue makes for a time consuming and slow decision making.

The term Mayor should only be used in relation to a town council. People visualise a city or large town when they hear the word Mayor. Often people assume that the Mayor is an ambassador for a town. That’s only true to an extent. Mayor’s used to have real powers. All Mayors are ex oficio members of all committees and sub-committees in the council.

When I served as Mayor it coincided with a campaign by the council to encourage tenants to buy out their ground rent from the councils. I must have signed off on hundreds of applications that year. The Mayor had to verify tenders and CPO’s. The Mayor is required to give legal effect to many of the councillor’s decisions. But the Mayor is also the ultimate ombudsman with the council officials. Councillors would often contact the Mayor to ask for something specific to be done. I don’t know if our present Mayor has those powers any more.  Wexford Borough District Council doesn’t have its own cheque book. The housing committee where all councillors could discuss issues regarding housing in the town disappeared at a time when one was more needed than ever.

We hear a lot about the council isn’t working but we hear little of what the solution may be. Perhaps the problem lies in the fact that the 2014 local election was seen as referendum on the government. Voter turnout was greater in rural areas than in urban areas as it generally is. That disadvantaged urban candidates at a stroke. Some successful candidates campaigned on national issues that they had little chance of influencing. The County Council was supposed to deal with policy issues only meeting as little as 3 or 4 time a year.  The real business was supposed to be done at district level. That never happened.  Instead we had councillors who saw the council as the next step on the way to the Dail use the council to deliver national messages.

So urban issues dropped further off the agenda.  It used to be the case that it was easy to contact a councillor, you'd see them on the street. Now? There's a lot less of them with more work to keep them going.

So what can be done? Restore the urban councils, give its members a say with a housing, justice and enterprise committee. The sooner this happens the better. There is increasing alienation in Wexford Town among citizens from their council. Most people couldn’t name the Mayor and apart from George Lawlor, few people are aware of who to go to when things are tough.

And that was not what was supposed to happen according to Phil Hogan. Better decision making placing the interest of the town at the heart of the district was supposed to be what would result. We don’t need another run at a failed system at our next local elections. Time to go back to what works.