Your TD is there for you in a wide variety of ways
LOVE them or loathe them, most of us never think about making contact with our local TD – which is a mistake, simply put.
Your local public representative is there for you and can be extremely helpful in a wide variety of ways – often well beyond their official remit. Many TD’s, who are elected as our national legislators, will find themselves (or, in many cases, their personal secretaries) helping people with very personal matters, such as pensions or medical cards.
This is how Ireland’s political system has evolved since the foundation of the state, but it’s useful to know that your local TD is very much there to assist you in any way they can. This can be something quite local, such as a planning application, right up to international, such as how we are dealing with Brexit.
Many of us today are quite concerned with how this country is dealing with Covid-19 or the climate crisis. Luckily, we each can have a direct impact on these issues at a national level via our local TD’s.
Technology, and especially social media, has had a revolutionary effect on politics. Most TD’s have social media accounts, allowing you to have direct access to your public representative from your own living room. You can do this to make a simple enquiry about a personal or local matter, right
up to stating your position on national matters of the day.
In fact, almost all public representatives offer you a variety of ways to make contact – though with some obvious restrictions currently due to Covid-19.
Most TD’s have constituency offices; their HQ, as it were. A TD will often have their personal secretary based at their constituency office and this person can be very helpful with most queries and concerns.
Usually – though this is very much
restricted at the moment – A TD will hold ‘clinics’ in a variety of locations each week. These are walk-in meeting points where anyone with a concern or difficulty can meet their public representative. Again, local clinics are very much restricted during the pandemic.
However, social media, e-mail or simply your mobile phone can give you easy access to your local TD. What’s more, most TD’s encourage constituents to make contact – on almost any matters of concern to them.
While many TD’s have duties at a national level – in the Dáil, government departments or on Dáil committees – all TD’s reserve a strong focus on what’s going on at a local level, and on serving their local constituents. After all, it’s their local constituents who elect them in the first place.
And there’s an interaction between the local and the national where your local TD plays a key role. If you have an ongoing difficulty dealing with a government department – say, in getting a vital medical service (an
operation) or an agriculture grant – your TD can ‘cut to the chase’ very directly. A TD has much more direct access to government departments, the minister of that department, or can place a ‘personal question’ (PQ) in the Dáil on the matter, which the relevant minister will be obliged to answer.
We might agree or disagree with their politics, but your local TD is there, and eager, to help, and despite Covid-19 it’s never been easier to reach out for that help.
WHERE do I start?
This is probably the most fundamental question we ask ourselves when we set out on the more unfamiliar tasks in life.
In recent weeks, many of us will have witnessed flooding in our local areas; where do you go to get something done about that, where do you start? At some stage in life, many of us will have to go about getting planning permission. The Cork County Council website is very helpful in this regard – but it’s also very extensive and exhaustive, especially to those who are unfamiliar with the whole process – which is most of us.
These are just two common areas where your local county councillor can be very useful and informative. As a first port of call, your local county councillor can put you on the right track from the get-go, saving you any amount of research, stress and wrong turns in affairs that would be unfamiliar to most of us.
County councillors are elected members of our local authority (local government) – in our case that means Cork County Council.
Our local authorities – county councils - are responsible for a range of local services, including:
• Housing
• Roads
• Recreation and amenities
• Planning
• Libraries
• Environmental protection
• Fire services
• Register of electors
Of course, they are also involved in the collection of various taxes, such as your car tax.
Getting involved with any of these services can be a stressful minefield for those unfamiliar with them, but your local county councillor can point you in the right direction from the outset.
Better again, your local representative will very often know the right department within the council, and even the best council official, to contact from the very beginning.
An experienced county councillor
will also know about the ‘ how to’ – whether it’s best to make personal contact with an official first or simply go online and get information \ make applications there.
In short, your local county councillor can make your life a lot easier when it comes to engaging with the local authority and the many functions it carries out.
What’s more, your local representative is usually eager to help and easily accessible. The phone number of every Cork county councillor is available online (on the corkcoco.ie website) and most have various social media accounts also – so they are accessible at the touch of a button.
Importantly, councillors also make decisions at council meetings. Local authorities make decisions about policies by passing ‘resolutions’. Resolutions are passed by councillors and are known as reserved functions of the local authority. Resolutions can include:
Decisions about annual budgets Housing policy Environmental protection policies Local authorities can pass laws where they are empowered to do so by the Oireachtas (the Dáil and senate). These laws are called bye-laws and are
often used to regulate:
• Parking zones and parking fines
• Litter control
• The control of horses and dogs As well as the fundamental role your vote plays in deciding who gets elected as a public representative, you can also have a say in the decisions (resolutions) made at Cork County Council via your local representative. Let them know how you stand on an issue and they will be guided by that stance – after all, every five years they will be back to your doorstep looking for your vote.