“Sit there in the corner, keep your mouths shut and do what you’re told.” This in a nutshell is how the Town Manager of Cobh Local Authority, Mary O’Halloran, dealt with our so-called public representatives at the annual estimates meeting of Cobh Council.
Ms. O’Halloran was delivering a diktat from Central Government that Service Charges would be set at 400 next year and no citizen or local politician would be allowed to question this autocratic tax imposition.
In effect, Central Government is dismantling local democracy. It is saying to the people of Cobh and many other communities – “Your opinion does not matter; the opinion of your local representatives does not matter. What matters is that we, the bureaucratic, unaccountable, centralised power demands an unquestioned right to plunder the financial resources of local communities. To make that convenient for us it will be necessary to terminate the bothersome concept of local democracy”.
There are two reasons why Central Government believes that it can get away with acting in this dictatorial fashion. Firstly, the system of Local Government is rotten to the core. Over the decades, the main political parties have, through self-serving agreements, turned council chambers into comfortable clubs for party activists. Serving the local community is almost always a secondary consideration. They have, in effect, become puppets of Central Government. Central Government knows that, apart from the occasional principled (but always ineffective) stand taken by genuine councillors, it has nothing to fear from local politicians.
Secondly, the Irish people themselves have become almost totally apathetic. Battered by decades of revelations of sleaze, corruption and incompetence, most Irish citizens have lost faith in their democratic system. They either don’t care and therefore don’t get involved, or have concluded that all democracies operate in this manner and therefore it must be the norm. Nothing could be further from the truth. The manner in which the Irish body politic operates is, to a great extent, abnormal when compared to other Western democracies. For example, when corruption is discovered in these democracies it is acted on immediately- the police and courts are involved from the very start, people actually go to jail if found guilty. In other words, justice is seen to be done. In Ireland, corruption is sidelined into never-ending tribunals where millionaires are created in the legal profession and the politicians can hide from being made accountable.
In 1776, the thirteen British colonies in North America challenged the right of the British Parliament to arbitrarily impose taxation without representation. Their successful challenge resulted in the creation of the greatest democracy of modern times. By abolishing local democracy and imposing punitive taxes on local communities, this Irish Government is doing exactly what the then British Government did to her colonies. I believe that no Irish Government has the right, either legally, constitutionally or morally, to remove local democracy from the people.
The citizens of Cobh and local communities throughout Ireland should challenge this threat to their democratic birthright by adopting the rallying cry of the American colonies – ‘No taxation without representation’
I am sympathetic to your argument:
http://internetcommentator.typepad.com/internet_commentator/2004/01/cobh_tea_party.html
But isn’t the crucial difference between Cobh and Boston that the tax revenue the British demanded was not going to get spent locally. The local councillors are hardly noble here, presumably they want to spend, spend, spend and expect central government to pick up the tab for the budget overruns. The thing is; central government taxation is also raised in Cobh. Either way they get you, whether by local tax or income tax. The solution is to cut back local spending and privatise costly services, such as bin collection, that people currently get for free.
Frank, they dont get it for free? In fact I don’t know anywhere in Ireland where you get bin collection for free. In many areas the bin collection service has been privatised, and bills have gone from €200 a year to €500 a year – with no reason given.
I think Anthony’s point is that the democracy of local government, elected councils, has been usurped by appointed town planners.
I agree with that point so long as the local council doesn’t expect the central government to come in and bail them out.
As for services: here in Louth bin collection has been privatised and that’s the best way. Ironically there is a better chance of “transparency” and “accountability” with private, competing bin collection companies than there is with a paid council service where, as you note, the charge can fluctuate wildly without any apparent justification.
I don’t know if there is anywhere left with free bin service but tap water is still “free” in most places even though it is costly to provide.