First of all I'd like to welcome you to Westport and this meeting. It's good of you to come at such short notice.
We on this council feel very strongly about this issue and about the AMAI's reaction and its good to have this opportunity to speak to you.
This council rejects the reforms as flawed and we do not accept that municipal councils are successors or replacements for town councils.
I have a number of questions in relation to the proposed abolition, the AMAI's reaction and future course of action in this matter.
I'd like to start by getting you to bust some myths for us in public in relation to Town Councils and Municipal Government.
Firstly the Minster has repeatedly stated and I quote "That there are too many councils and councillors" for a country the size of Ireland.
The ratio is 1 councillor per 118 per head of population per Councillor in France, 250 per head of population in Sweden and 350 in Germany. This rises to 610 in Spain and 1100 per head of population in Greece and Belgium.
That only the UK has a lower ratio of councillors to citizens that Ireland?
The reform proposes to make this situation worse by increasing the ratio from 1 councillor per 2,336 to 1 councillor per 4,800.
The AMAI and An Bord Snip estimate the total saving from abolishing 75 town councils and 700 councillors is just €6 million; that's a saving of just €80k per council.
That the Minister's repeated claims of savings of hundreds of millions are actually derived from cost savings of shared equipment and manpower and the redundancies of 500 Public servants
The Minister says he is abolishing 80 councils but the truth is he is actually creating more councils than ever before? if we are to believe that these municipal councils are anything more than grandiose local area committees?
In August of 2011 the AMAI PUBLISHED THE FINDINGS OF A REPORT
"The Case for Town Local Government in Ireland in the 21st Century", was carried out by researchers at University College Cork
The study claims that town and borough councils are significantly less reliant on central government funding compared to city and county councils, yet are regularly targeted for exchequer cutbacks.
The report points out that the more successful economies in the developed world all have a vibrant system of town government at the heart of their public administration systems.
"Ireland needs a more comprehensive tier of town or community government covering the entire country. Currently we have too few town councils and quite often they carry the can for the ineffectiveness of county councils," said the AMAI.
Town Councils, Borough Councils and City Councils which have existed separately for centuries in the interests of savings only, taking in no account the historical, economic, cultural, social and morale impact of such a move. Meanwhile Dublin is to be left as 4 separate local authorities for no good reason.
No effort has been made to differentiate between effective, efficient and successful councils and other less effective councils.
Under the reforms there's no guarantee that the Westport Town Budget of over €5m will be spent in the area in future?
And that the savings of this council will most likely be handed over the County Council rather than be retained by the Municipal Council?
How does the AMAI go from calling for more town councils and councillors to the position of "welcoming the reform of local government while regretting the loss of 40% of Cllrs. How can you welcome any reform which sees what you have proved is the most efficient form of local government and councillor.
How can you welcome any part of that?
When I heard of the abolition of this town council I emailed the AMAI and asked what the AMAI had done to fight this I received a one line reply
"What more could we have done?"
Do you think that is an adequate response?
The AMAI has failed to reverse its welcome for the reforms.
It has not publicly corrected the minister's propaganda
It has not organised a media campaign or even a protest meeting or petition.
Now we see the 5 Bourough Councils have banded together and made financial provision for action and a campaign to fight their aboltion.
Not a word of support from the AMAI for that.
The AMAI who should be a conduit for news and a campaign of resistence is silent expect for circulating requests for us to fill in submissions for boundaries
Meanwhile, President of the AMAI Willie Callaghan said he is disappointed that representatives of the association were not invited to last night's meeting in Midleton.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Mr Callaghan said the association will take legal advice once the Bill is published, but this was not yet an option.
He said he was surprised a town or county manager would allow taxpayers' money to be used for taking a case.
That statement is a slap in th face to councils like Middleton in Cork who have put aside 50,000 for a legal case and Westport which has put aside 5,000 to support a court challenge or campaign against abolition.
The constitution is a living document.
There are un-numerated rights under the constitution, like free speech which are not written into it but have been implied to exist within it.
Even if not intended a referendum can create unexpected changes to the referendum.
The local government amendment to the constitution could have created an implied right of protection for town councils, even if that was not the aim or intention of the referendum.
Chief Law officer of the state when a Senior Counsel advised that there were no constitutional implications or bars to ending Upward only rent reviews. However on becoming Attorney General that same person advised the government that there WERE constitutional issues in relation to ending Upward only rent reviews.
If a SC counsel cannot be sure on an issue like this then we must persue our options through the court to see if there is any implied protection for our councils under the constitution.
i love local democracy and I love the fact that any citizen of this town can run for office and change things if they wish. the new system will create a power sub class of powerful full time councillors and with councils the size of county Louth people will need financial backing and a team of supporters to have any chance. It is a bad day for democracy if that happens.
We must fight that.
My address to the AMAI last night at Westport Town Council's January Meeting.K
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