The directly-elected Mayor of Limerick would like it to be known, he says, that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael councillors, who hold a majority of the seats on Limerick City Council, are voting down his initiatives and making his life hell.
Here’s what he had to say, on his personal website:
“Since my election, a small minority of councillors within the two “ruling” parties have consistently opposed almost every significant initiative I have brought forward. I emphasise: this is not the majority of councillors….
Innovative housing initiatives have been dismissed as “unsuitable dog boxes” by one and “a total waste of money” by another councillor despite being recognised by the national government as exemplars of good practice. A strategic land purchase in Patrickswell for housing and other amenities — widely applauded across the country and supported by many within the chamber — has been relentlessly criticised and lobbied against. Proposals to build on zoned housing land have been described as ill-advised because people would not be safe in neighbourhoods that those same representatives have long represented and overseen.”
Moran goes on to complain, essentially, about procedural delaying tactics and what he appears to suggest is a general strategy by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to frustrate his agenda, perhaps with the ultimate goal of getting him to “walk away” from the office entirely.
On an initial read of his article, one might feel sympathy. But actually, the more I read it, the more encouraged I think we should be.
Why?
Because it seems that the councillors – who are, just like Moran, elected representatives – are taking their jobs more seriously now that they have an elected Mayor, a political opponent, to hold to account.
You need not take sides between Moran and the Council on the specific details of whether land should be purchased in Patrickswell, or whether particular zoning proposals should go through, to come to the conclusion that what is playing out in local government in Limerick is a genuinely political process, rather than the sterile administrative processes that pass for local government elsewhere. In Dublin, for example, radical traffic proposals have been enacted in recent years absent any political debate or political disputes at all. As I wrote a week or so ago, the most powerful man in Dublin is an unelected civil servant that hardly anyone has heard of, a fellow by the name of Richard Shakespeare.
What does it profit a Dublin City Councillor to oppose a civil servant that nobody has elected? By contrast, in Limerick, hopes for future electoral success and the presence of an elected administrator to “hold to account” has given Limerick City Council its first taste of “real” politics in forty or fifty years.
The objective of electing a Mayor was not and should not be about replacing County Managers – many of whom function as local Putin-esque (in terms of their power) potentates with county councils reduced to Duma-esque irrelevance – with elected dictators, otherwise there would be no need for the councils at all. No, the purpose was always to make local politics more prominent and relevant, and to give councillors and elected mayors a stake in the outcomes of the decisions made by the councils. If Moran fails to enact much of what he promised, he can be voted out. If, by contrast, he succeeds in persuading Limerick voters that their councillors are the problem, then they can be voted out.
The first Limerick Mayoral election may not have had much to do with what the City Council should actually be doing – but five years of rows between council and Mayor, and you might suddenly find that these big local issues are actually on the ballot paper the next time Limerick residents go to vote.
There are still ways this could be improved. Ideally, the Mayor should be empowered after two years of a council’s term to dissolve it and call fresh local elections if there is a political impasse between him and the elected councillors. This would offer local authorities a democratic way to resolve major disputes on planning or other matters where there was division between the Mayor and the council. Contrary to what jaded voters tend to profess, more elections and more decision making directly by voters is a good thing, and the Mayoral system, implemented properly, offers a way to get to that point.
As for Moran, he is not powerless, as his website post reveals. As Mayor, he is possessed of a local bully pulpit. If he wishes to campaign against councillors and persuade local voters to get upset with their FF and FG councillors for opposing his proposals, he has the ability to get out there and communicate that. The very act of trying to persuade voters that their councillors are standing in the way of things they want is democracy in action, and promotes engagement between citizen and local legislators.
This is exactly the kind of stuff we should want to see, in Irish local democracy, regardless of who actually triumphs. It is a damn sight better than unelected officials producing plans, and councillors sending them through on the nod, which is what happens in so much of the rest of the country.
Three cheers, I say, for a good local row that might actually get people thinking about what their council does, and how much it costs.