One Mayo councillor per 4,600 people - and we call this democracy!

Abolition of town councils is coming home to roost

A taskforce on local government held its final meeting last month and the report is now with the Minister for Housing and Local Government.

It is expected to be published in the coming weeks.

We have been here before with promises of tangible reform of our local democracy, our county councils and municipal districts.

The Local Government Act 2014 remains a much maligned piece of legislation among councillors in this county and beyond, a regular source of grievance at monthly meetings, particularly among those who believe they lost out most heavily: the town councillors.

This taskforce was established as a key commitment in the Programme for Government and it has concluded, with many awaiting findings that will emerge only after government has gleaned what it can from the report.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin has openly backed calls for the return of town councils, reminding the Oireachtas he opposed their abolition in 2014.

He also recalled Brendan Howlin's Damascene moment, when the former minister reflected regretfully on his own role in their abolition alongside Phil Hogan.

What is most striking is the lack of civic engagement that has followed directly from the removal of town and borough councils.

Would we see so many celebrity candidates chosen by parties if there remained a firm pathway from community citizen to town council to county level?

The Council of Europe's findings in 2023 that Ireland is one of the most centralised states in the bloc raised alarms but confirmed what many already knew, with "a lot to be done" before local self-government here matches other EU states.

This all comes more than 20 years after Ireland ratified the European Charter on Local Self-Government.

We rank only marginally ahead of Moldova and Hungary. That is where our ascent halts. We fund our local governments at a much lower rate too, hoarding tax revenue in Dublin.

The fundamental reason for this is the abolition of town councils, where money raised locally was spent locally. People on the ground knew who their elected representatives were.

Meetings, held in the evenings rather than during working hours, were more accessible to anyone who was not a publican, auctioneer or farmer.

The 2014 reforms abolished 80 town councils, reducing the number of councillors nationally by more than 40 per cent. The total fell from 1,627 to 949.

The result is stark in international terms. Ireland now has one councillor for roughly every 5,400 people, a ratio worse than any other country in Europe. Denmark, with a similar population, has 2,432 councillors at a ratio of one per 2,399 people. Finland has 8,859 councillors, one per 627 people.

In Mayo, the ratio is one councillor per 4,600 citizens.

Nationally, comparable figures show one councillor per 120 people in France, one per 210 in Austria and one per 350 in Germany.

The Mayo figure is based on Census 2022 data, with more recent CSO figures pointing to a further rise in the county's population since then.

Council staffing levels have not kept pace with that population growth either. Staff are under increasing pressure, with more demanded of them as local authorities are asked to do ever more with ever less.

Fórsa, the trade union representing more than 12,000 local government workers, has highlighted what many outside the public sector may not fully appreciate.

The union points to political expediency as the primary obstacle to meaningful reform, restructuring and adequate funding of local authorities. The figures bear that out.

Full-time equivalent local authority staff stood at 35,007 in the fourth quarter of 2008. By the fourth quarter of 2024 that figure had fallen to 32,372, a reduction of 7.5 per cent.

At a time when the national population grew by 21 per cent. Staff shortages, burnout and concerns over service cover remained the highest priorities among surveyed local authority workers in 2023. Little has changed since.

There is a constitutional guarantee ensuring TDs represent citizens in the Dáil at a ratio fixed by law. No such guarantee exists at local level.

The blame game that follows serves no one.

All that can be hoped for is that this report is worthy of the process that produced it, driven by individuals genuinely committed to rectifying historic mistakes, and that this is a government prepared to tackle the chronic underfunding of local authorities, empowering citizens at grassroots level and addressing the democratic deficit at the heart of local government in Ireland.