I am strongly in favour of extensive reform of the Local Government system, including the direct election of Mayors to serve full five year terms.<\/p>\n
\nWe should now be welcoming to office the first ever directly elected Lord Mayor of Dublin City. Unfortunately because of the actions of the members of the Cabinet and the votes of the PD & Fianna Fail TDs in the Dail, the people have been denied this opportunity.<\/p>\n
Dublin desperately needs a Directly Elected Lord Mayor who would serve for the full term of the City Council. Such a Mayor working with the members of the Council and with sufficient powers and resources is needed now more than ever to rescue this City from the clutching, incompetent and disinterested control of central Government.<\/p>\n
Shamefully the sections of the 2001 Local Government Act enabling this have been reversed by Minister Cullen. Once again therefore we face in to Local Elections with no reform of Local Government, no debate on how we should finance our system and above all the disgraceful withdrawal of the right of citizens to choose their own Mayor or Council Chairperson.<\/p>\n
That this Minister who has engaged in a systematic dismantling of our Local Government system is also Fianna Fail Director of Elections for the forthcoming Local Elections adds a dose of cynicism and hypocrisy that beats even Fianna Fails traditional standards.<\/p>\n
Dublin needs a directly elected Lord Mayor with a mandate to serve for five years who, working with the members of the City Council, will Lead this City and Stand up for this City. It is not too late for this right to be given back to citizens and Minister Cullen might redeem some of his diminishing credibility by providing for that forthwith.<\/p>\n
It is one of the unfortunate truisms of modern Ireland that we need reform of our creaking, antiquated, underfunded and underdeveloped system of Local Government. It is a truism occasionally written about, often argued for and never implemented. Of course we need real reform, and of course we need Councillors to take more responsibility.<\/p>\n
A directly elected Lord Mayor should be only the start of a total reform of our failing system of Local Government. Powers which have been stripped from elected representatives and handed over lock, stock and barrel to City & County Managers, appointees of the Minister, need to be restored to City and County Councillors across the country.<\/p>\n
The issue of financing of Local Government also needs extensive review. At present, Dublin City Council is losing out on millions of euro every year (\u20ac22m for 2002 alone) from fees which the Government has waived its responsibility to pay. Dublin City Council is also in receipt of less funding from Central Government per capita than any<\/em> other Local Authority in the country.<\/p>\n Some people believe that the role of Local Government is to implement the views and policies of the so-called Department of the Environment and Local Government. It is not. It is the job of Dublin City Councillors to do all that is best for this City and its citizens. It is their job to stand up for Dublin; not to regurgitate the failed views and policies imposed on our City from the Customs House. The same applies to Councillors representing other parts of our country in respect of their areas.<\/p>\n I stand firmly at the spearhead of the drive for Local Government reform, and will continue fighting until the respect due to our city is restored.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I am strongly in favour of extensive reform of the Local Government system, including the direct election of Mayors to serve full five year terms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogs"],"yoast_head":"\n