Why local people need to be in charge of local issues
Do not be fooled by the blandishment of ‘decentralisation’ as a substitute for devolution, writes Conor Skehan
‘The solution is to transfer power to where decisions have effect’
LET’S have a minister for each county. Who wouldn’t want to be the minister for Dublin, or Laois or Mayo?
The 17 junior ministers, plus the 15 Cabinet ministers mandated by Section 28 of the Constitution, plus the two super juniors already appointed, adds up to 34 ministerial positions — more than enough for everyone in the audience.
Why, with a little tweaking we could even have one minister for each of our 39 constituencies.
Would having a Cabinet based on the regions, counties or constituencies really make any part of Ireland more prosperous?
We may be using the wrong approach. The issue may be less ‘one-for-everyone-in-the audience’ than a problem of trying to have ‘one-size-fits-all’ policies and governance that tries to suit all of Ireland.
Calls for a better regional spread of ministers falls into the trap of mistaking representation for legislation. It is the specific job of a TD to represent the views of each place — not a minister. What would happen to the role of the ‘ordinary’ TD when there is also a minister in almost every constituency?
This smacks of populism at its worst. It seeks to bypass the Constitution; diminishes the role of the TD and dilutes governmental accountability. It is a bad idea, notwithstanding the reality that all Cabinets should have a regional balance, of which more later.
The chopping and changing of departments to meet political needs is also a bad idea because of the damage it does to the structure, staffing and operation of central government.
There is nothing wrong with being open to change in pursuit of continuous improvement, but this is not happening in Ireland. Here, such change happens increasingly for political expediency. This practice must be stopped but the people most affected — the civil servants — cannot speak out publicly about the havoc wrought.
Returning to the topic of ‘Cromwell’s Cabinet’, much of the indignation is about the lack of representation. The complaints are framed by using the phrase ‘the west of Ireland’, as if this is an area that has special entitlements. Too often this formulation is used to make the case for perceived imbalances — some even claiming that the country is divided into ‘Dublin and the rest’. This is false, misleading and highly damaging to policy formulation.
It is false because ‘rural Ireland’ is complex, made up of different places with different issues and opportunities.
There are at least four rural Irelands: west coast, east midlands, north and south midlands.
Within these there are remote areas, areas around towns and the rural towns themselves. Each of these, in turn, have different roles, prospects and needs. It is critical to have fine-tuned policies and governance to deal with this diversity. Populists who try to wrap all this complexity in the handy crowd-pleasing banner of ‘rural Ireland’ do no favours to those that they seek to rouse or represent.
Two problems arise from generalisations about rural Ireland. The first is the emergence of ‘one-size-fits-all’ policies for rural areas, which inevitably fit no place well.
The second, bigger problem, is that this debate acts like a smokescreen that blinds us to the continuing disgrace of Ireland’s excessively centralised system of governance. The effects on regions of poor policies are the symptoms of centralisation, not of any lack of attention that would be rectified by Cabinet representation.
If we want to deal effectively with the misfits between policies and plans for rural areas, then we need to deal with the causes, not the symptoms.
Countries that take too much control to the centre can never give enough attention to the detailed needs of each different place.
Having more representatives of each region at the centre — as junior or senior ministers — will not solve this problem.
In fact, it only makes it worse, by causing a further increase in the size of central government that struggles to deal with more specific regional issues.
Equally important this does away with the micro-management of local implementation by officials who know little about local issues or sensitivities.
The solution to better regional prosperity, recognised all over the world, is to transfer as much power as possible, as close as possible to the place where the decisions have effect. It is called ‘devolution’ and it involves giving powers to plan, spend and tax to local politically accountable bodies.
Do not be fooled by the blandishment of ‘decentralisation’ as a substitute for devolution. It is merely an exercise in musical chairs about where service offices are located that makes no difference to policies or services.
In Ireland we have the beginnings of this system appearing with our three regional assemblies. These need to be dramatically strengthened and politicised, but they are a very good start.
Indeed there might even be a case for having a minister for each of these regions at Cabinet — with each region in turn having a Cabinet of the region’s TDs, mirroring the functions of central government as a training ground before progressing to a national Cabinet. This would give permanent and structural representation of the type sought.
In proper systems the central government makes strategic decisions and national budgets — after which the regional government is in charge of implementation and fine-tuning to meet local need.
This might even allow the opportunity to have a smaller Cabinet in charge of unchanging, stable Government departments — no junior ministers.
These changes, in turn, would provide a secure and workable structure for elected mayors that are a recognised pre-requisite for regional prosperity, such as Spain’s autonomous regions.
In all of this we need to make the Cabinet smaller and the number of ministers and departments fewer. Evidence suggests that the ideal size of a board is seven and that effectiveness declines with each additional member.
The framers of our Constitution were correct when they specified that the Cabinet should be no smaller than seven and no bigger than 15.
We need to listen to concerns about any lack of regional representation, but the solution is not to make matters worse by having more junior ministers.
If people really want to vote for change, they should vote to change governance, not governments.