At last, politicians have an opportunity to do something creative where the future of local government is concerned. Twenty years of neglect, half baked reforms and inadequate funding has done great damage to local democracy and has contributed to the low esteem in which many politicians are held in this country. A failure by successive governments to take tough, unpopular decisions, in the interest of the greater public good, is at the root of this malaise at local level. And it has helped to sustain a system of centralised bureaucracy which has inhibited development.
The Minister for the Environment, Mr Howlin, yesterday published the latest in a long series of studies on funding and reform and called for an all party approach to a restructuring of local government. The documents deal with a comprehensive reform package for town and county government prepared by a special commission. And consultants KPMG examined possible funding mechanisms ranging from local charges, to a local property tax, commercial rates, a local sales tax, a community charge or poll tax, a centrally funded grant system and the apportionment of existing taxation. The favoured options were a local property tax or a local income tax.
For almost twenty years, since the contents of a White Paper was ignored and the direct financial relationship between local authorities and their electorates was largely severed, democracy at local level has operated in subsistence mode. Now, the opportunity offers for a return to better days, although it might not happen this side of a general election.
Fianna Fail's spokesman on the Environment, Mr Noel Dempsey, has displayed political maturity and vision by not dismissing the Minister's overture out of hand. It would be easy to spurn the approach as amounting to political opportunism, if not cowardice. But Mr Dempsey has taken a longer, more pragmatic and responsible view. He has suggested that if the Opposition parties are given real responsibility and authority by the Government in devising a comprehensive package of reforms including funding matters - Fianna Fail would be prepared to participate in an all party committee.
All Dail parties recognise that local authority funding must be placed on a proper, long term footing. And all agree that it is a politically dangerous issue. Given that the five main Dail parties have ambitions to be in government over the next few years, it would make perfectly good sense for them to ignore short term political advantage in favour of long term community gain. The public might even give them credit for such a positive approach.