While ceilings of €7,000-€15,000 now apply, issues remain with public access to such information, writes ELAINE BYRNE
‘DEMOCRACY IS a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve,” George Bernard Shaw once said. With that in mind, the McCracken, Moriarty and Mahon tribunal reports underlined how cheap local politicians sold their rezoning votes. Property developers subsequently made extraordinary profits on foot of these decisions.
Which begs the question, if I was going to prostitute my reputation and emasculate my town’s future, surely I would have done it for more than a few thousand? But selling democracy short was de rigueur in those days apparently. Not any more!
For the first time, spending limits have been introduced to local elections. A sliding scale ranging from €7,500-€15,000, based on the population within each individual electoral area, will apply in the 60 days leading up to polling day on June 5th. All candidates are legally obliged to declare their election spending to their local authority.
Minister for the Environment John Gormley announced at the Green Party annual conference that these long overdue reforms would be “the most radical piece of legislation on political funding ever”. I found 12 different definitions of “radical” in the dictionary and I’m not quite sure to which one he is referring. For instance, radical can mean someone who advocates fundamental political reform – probably what he is trying to achieve.
Some questions, Minister. Who will monitor the spending limits? Will the local authorities conduct spot checks, for example, to ensure the self-regulated election statements of local election candidates are accurate? Or are we to take our prospective local councillors on their solemn word and covenant?
Local councillors are legally obliged to provide information on how they fund their local election campaigns, how much they spent on their election and what conflict of interest they may or may not have. For the most part, the general public are not aware they have the right to this information.
Although the annual report of each local authority will now publish these election statements, it is meaningless, unless the availability of this material is publicised and easily accessible by members of the public, constituency competitors and the media.
The ethics registrar in each local authority is responsible for the councillor’s register of interests. Some local authorities are better than others. Galway County Council represents model practice. Its “ethics menu” clearly identifies the contact details of the ethics registrar while the councillors’ register of interests is readily available on its website.
In most cases, local authorities insist that public inspection should occur at their offices only and the identity of the ethics registrar can be as elusive as the third secret of Fatima.
The existence of a register of interests does not necessarily imply reality. An RTÉ Prime Timeprogramme survey in November 2007 found that, remarkably, 97 per cent of Clare councillors had no interest in their own family home. This was also the case for two-thirds of councillors in 10 other counties. Not owning their own homes is not a phenomenon among councillors, but rather a symptom of non-compliance and not filling out the forms properly. Where non-compliance occurs, how do members of the public access an independent unequivocal complaints procedure?
The register of interests for national representatives has been made publicly available on the Houses of the Oireachtas website for some years now. This is also the case for the disclosure of expenditure and political donations for TDs, senators, MEPs and presidential candidates which is easily available on the standards commission website. So, why has a distinction been made between the ethical requirements of our local and national politicians?
It is curious that the local government accountability framework is not as vigorous as its national counterpart, given the findings of the McCracken, Moriarty and Mahon tribunal trilogy. Not that this is a particularly overriding concern for our local representatives. In preparation for the Green Paper on Local Government Reform, the Department of the Environment organised a number of regional seminars. I attended last year’s seminar for the Dublin, Kildare, Wicklow, Meath and Louth councillors.
The written outcome of the public consultation, available on the department’s website, contained just one line on local government ethics. Under “any other business”, the statement simply read: “There should be limits on local election expenditure.”
That was it.
My distinct impression was that councillors were not overtly concerned about public perceptions regarding their integrity but rather the potential powers of directly elected mayors. Reassuring that.
National accountability mechanisms, such as the standards commission and the Comptroller and Auditor General, have been decentralised to local authorities ethics registrars and the Local Government Audit Service (LGAS). This has facilitated unnecessary confusion, particularly in the public’s mind, regarding where responsibilities lie for the already complex network of integrity-related legislation.
Enough of emu-style legislation. Flightless birds that have lots of nice feathers are all well and good but completely pointless unless they can fly. Shaw also said that “If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable Man must be of learning from experience.” Radical, eh?