The Fianna Fáil government in 1936 expanded the electorate for local authorities from ratepayers only to everyone on the Dáil’s register of electors. The Irish Times thought the move was another step towards totalitarianism. – JOE JOYCE
WITH GOOD reason we call this widening of the electorate a highly dangerous experiment. It has been adopted simply and solely because Mr de Valera’s government wishes the support of the local authorities, and knows that so long as the Dublin register is confined to the ratepayers it cannot hope to obtain a majority on the Corporation of Dublin.
Unhappily, in his attempt to create a “totalitarian” State in Ireland Mr de Valera both has forgotten the functions of local authorities and has done much to impair their proper working.
Mr Cosgrave had banished “politics” from the local bodies, and thereby had increased their efficiency. Mr de Valera restored the unpleasant word, and its equally unpleasant connotations, when he permitted candidates to go forward in the name of Fianna Fáil – thus compelling his political opponents to follow his example.
Now the new register strikes a further blow at the principle of local government. The basic doctrine always has been that only those people who pay for a city’s upkeepshall decide how that city is to be governed. Mr de Valera has substituted a new doctrine. From henceforth the same ratepayers will continue to foot the civic bill, but every Tom, Dick and Harry will have a right to determine how their money will be spent. Is this either democracy or logic?
There no longer would be, said Mr Lemass last night, any privileged class in the life of the city, and for the first time Fianna Fáil would have a real chance to ensure a Municipal Council which would be a proper reflex of the national feelings of the people of Dublin. The sentence rings strangely. Is it such a privilege to be allowed to vote for the City Council when one pays for the city’s upkeep? Is it the function of a City Council to be a proper reflex of “national feelings” or to administer the city?
Truly, Mr de Valera is reducing his doctrines of democracy to the absurd. He has all but abolished the Senate, where some few men of balanced outlook still linger; he is abolishing university representation in Dáil Éireann in order to reduce the effective intelligence of that body even further. It becomes increasingly evident that Mr de Valera seeks the reality, if not the form, of a “totalitarian” State. The essential feature of Italian Fascism, as of National Socialism in Germany, is that every department of a country’s activity shall be permeated with the spirit of the dominant party; and that is the very result which Mr de Valera is trying to achieve today.
Let us not forget that National Socialism first throve through its appeal to the dispossessed against those citizens who, having material interests in the country, were anxious to preserve sober government and to maintain the democratic institutions? How much further will Mr de Valera carry this parallel?
http://url.ie/8yx8