Limerick city and county is the scene of an important experiment in democracy and public administration, as its people go to the polls to vote for a directly elected mayor. In a country set to become a bigger state that will deliver more, and more complex service for a growing an aging population, the structure and quality of public institutions matters. Local government in Ireland is feeble.
Irish local government according to the Council of Europe has a more limited set of functions, represents a smaller share of public affairs, and can only marginally influence the size of its resources. Only Moldova and Hungary have stronger central governments relative to the centre. Local government’s share of total public expenditures is 9 per cent here, far below the European Union average of 23.3 per cent. The lack of resources is intertwined with our taxation structure, which relies on a relatively narrow base of centrally collected taxes.
An element of the housing crisis can also be traced to the lack of resources locally, both in terms of investment to build social housing, and planners who can move projects on, at pace. The new mayor of Limerick won’t be a cure for this, but the office is an honest attempt at subsidiarity, the principle that decision-making is taken at the lowest possible level. As the State starts its second century, this is the first instance of the direct election of an executive office. It is also a throwback to a time when there was intense localism in the Irish political system.
Apart from the structure of local government and the quality of its services, is the issue of its credibility with people. CEOs who hold most of the power, regardless of their ability and commitment are not public facing figures, have generally low visibility, and critically do not have a mandate. The abolition from 2004 of the dual mandate whereby TDs could also be councillors, and the simultaneous abandonment of plans for directly elected mayors, gave us the worst of all worlds.
The executive power of the new mayor is significant, if limited. They oversee strategic planning, housing strategy and co-ordination locally of plans and policies on transport and the environment. They will set out their mayoral programme within four months of election and draw up the annual budget. The mayor will be an ex officio councillor, accountable to the council, and ultimately dependent on marshalling its support. The mayor has the right of audience twice a year with ministers in Dublin and has the right to convene national agencies about planning and delivery in Limerick.
To make this work the first directly elected mayor must have political skills of a high order, and be able to harness the executive, whose role under a renamed director general is to support the elected mayor. It is both a reasonably modest and a fundamental change in the model designed by Arthus Balfour the Chief Secretary of Ireland in the Local Government (Ireland) Act (1898). Success will lead to demands for change elsewhere. Failure will be a lost opportunity.
