Editorial: Does Waterford really need a democratically elected mayor?
Mayor of Limerick John Moran has called for a review of the system he now governs.
When John Moran became Limerick’s and Ireland’s first democratically elected mayor two years ago, the move was warmly welcomed across the political spectrum- more than 80% of Limerick voters agreed it was a positive development.
The move was designed to transfer executive power back into the hands of democratically elected officials, reshaping Ireland’s antiquated and byzantine council structure.
While Waterford voters narrowly rejected the premise of a directly elected Mayor in 2019, the Limerick experiment has been watched closely.
Ireland’s system of local democracy is built on a lopsided relationship between elected ‘councillors’ and a council’s ‘executive’ - essentially high-ranking civil servants who wield the lion’s share of decision-making power whilst holding no democratic mandate.
A 2023 European report into Irish local authorities was damning in highlighting the imbalance and the way in which elected councillors are starved of autonomy.
Surely Moran, boasting a CV that would trump many Leinster House legislators, was going to illuminate a bright path forward?
Two years on from his election, it certainly hasn’t worked out that way.
Political infighting, led by a minority from Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, along with ambiguities in his remit, has left Moran in a precarious situation and unable to push through legislation.
For those who think Waterford’s problems can be solved by waving a magic wand and electing a democratic mayor, it’s evidently not that simple.
What remains glaringly obvious is the need for urgent reform of Waterford’s local council.
A council run by officials who have no requirement to be front-facing lends itself to a system where transparency and accountability are often left wanting.
When there’s no necessity for public support, and councillors are left powerless, people who feel the effects of council decision-making in their everyday lives understandably become disillusioned.
Whether readers like or loathe Active Travel, should fundamental changes to people’s daily commutes really take place with such little public scrutiny? Even when plans are presented to the public, they are often changed before implementation.
Councillors can project flooding occurring in areas, but if a council is haphazard in its reaction, there isn’t any real political consequence for the culpable executive.
When Waterford’s third largest museum is shut down with the blessing of ‘the council’, albeit temporarily, ‘the councillors’ can’t tell constituents why - because they never really had a say in the matter.
Yet the mayoral system in Limerick has presented its own challenges.
With seemingly more power in the hands of Moran and Limerick councillors, the power struggle in the local authority has changed forms.
Gone are the shadowy executive rulings, instead replaced by the ossified politics familiar to Leinster House.
With more power in the hands of councillors and a stronger incentive to sabotage progress for political point scoring, the Limerick Council could begin to mirror the Dáil as a body that only looks in the short-term.
It becomes the same kind of machine that will dole out giveaways in pre-election budgets while ignoring the nation’s glaring infrastructure deficits, content to champion a dreadfully hyper-exposed economy that takes half of its corporation tax intake from just three companies, and a country that finds itself in a housing crisis having seen NAMA flog land assets at dirt-cheap prices as soon as it got them.
This newspaper does not have the ready-made solution to fix the local authority question. Maybe Limerick’s system will find a way to iron out the kinks in the coming years?
The only thing that’s constant in life is change, and Waterford council should welcome it, fight through it and learn how to use it for the better.
