Community Workers Co-Operative


New Roles
New Responsibilities

Enhancing local democracy to eliminate poverty

Conference Summary, march 1998

Background & Context

Participative Democracy

Strategic Policy Committees - Summary Reform Proposals

SPC Guidelines

Summary of Workshop Recommendations

Follow-up

The past year has seen a lot of discussion on the changing nature of local government. "Better Local Government - A Programme for Change" the White Paper on local government reform, which was produced in December 1996, has provided the stimulus for much of this. Many of the changes announced and currently being implemented have produced a range of reactions, both positive and negative. The reactions have come from elected councillors, from local authority managers, from community bases organisations, from trade unions. Ironically, or maybe not so, changes which have been welcomed by some have been roundly criticised by others. There does though appear to be a common strand of opinion. Most of those commenting on local government reform share a vision of more effective, efficient and responsive local government. The path to achieving this vision and the issues to be addressed on the way may however differ.

To deepen our own understanding of this, the CWC Local Government Sub Group held conference last November drawing together community activists, local councillors, representative of statutory bodies, partnership companies and others. The purpose of this document is to present, in summary form, some of the ideas and issues discussed at the conference.

A core element of the conference discussions was an agreement around the need for local government to become more responsive to the needs, concerns and involvement of community organisations working to eliminate social exclusion. This, the conference was told by Minister Noel Dempsey and others, will require local authorities to more fully appreciate and embrace the concept of participatory democracy and its contribution alongside representative democracy to the further evolution of democratic expression in Ireland.

The challenges in achieving this should not be underestimated. Undoubtedly, participatory democracy and the development and implementation of strategies to support it, for some, represents a considerable threat to the traditional way of doing things. The working culture of both the executive and representative sides of many local authorities will need to adjust and adapt to new forms of democratic expression. In particular, it will involve local authorities opening themselves up to constructive input and possibly criticism from community organisations, without resorting to "punishing" those to openly disagree with them.

For community organisation too, the evolving nature of local governance will present challenges. Challenges to engage more fully engage with local government structures, challenges to develop broad local strategies to eliminate poverty and to insert these strategies on the agendas of political parties and local authority executives. At the end of the day, the biggest challenge of all is for local democracy to adapt itself to the challenges of eliminating social exclusion, not least the exclusion, for whatever reason, of many from local democratic process. The responsibility and the need to address this should not be taken lightly.


Conference Speakers:

Charting the Changes

Noel Dempsey T.D., Minister for the Environment and Local Government.

Frank Ryan, IPA, Local Government Unit.

Stasia Crickley, CWC & ADM Board.

Responding To The Changes

Chris Flood T.D., Minister of State, Dept Of Tourism, Sport & Recreation.

Siobhan Lynam, ADM Ltd Workshops.

Tackling Poverty And Inequality

Hugh Frazer, Combat Poverty Agency.

Brid O`Brien, Pavee Point, Workshop Report.

Kathleen fahy, CWC.

Chris McInerney, CWC.

Contacts & Information

Kildare County Council

N. Bradley, County Manager,
St. Mary's, Naas
045 897071

Area Development Management Ltd.

Holbrook House, Holles Street, Dublin 2
01 661 3611

Institute of Public Administration

Local Authority Unit,
57-61 Lansdowne Rd., Dublin 4
01 668 6233

Community Workers Co-operative

Chris McInerney,
Local Government Subgroup,
78 Prospect Hill, Galway
091 563 644

Combat Poverty Agency

Helen Johnston, Bridgewater Centre,
Conyngham Rd., Islandbridge, Dublin 8
01 670 6746

Department of the Environment

John Cullen, Local Government Division,
Custom House, Dublin 1
01 679 3377

National Anti-Poverty Strategy Unit

Bernadette Lacey,
Dept. of Social, Family & Community Affairs,
Store Street, Dublin 1
01 874 8444

Department of Tourism, Sport and Recreation

Kildare Street, Dublin 2
01 662 1444


Community Development News

Co. Kildare Community Network