Row highlights urgent need for local government reform

4 local authorities, 4 chief executives, 4 mayors, 183 councillors, and countless State agencies – who do you call if you want to call Dublin?

The Green Party today claimed that the row between the Web Summit and the Government highlights the desperate need for local government reform, and exposes the lack of coordination in the way Dublin is run.

Speaking today, Green Party Leader Eamon Ryan said the fact that the Department of the Taoiseach is dealing with things like traffic management is an indictment of the failures of local Government.

“The failure of the City Council and the Government to work together to keep the event in Dublin reflects a wider problem of where the management of the city is fragmented between a myriad different authorities and agencies.

“The Web Summit fiasco must be a wake-up call for local government reform, and highlights the need for Dublin to have an executive directly-elected mayor who can tackle traffic, tourism and other challenges. The growing centralisation of power has emasculated local government and is a dangerous distraction from issues that Government should be addressing.

“Asking the Taoiseach for buses is not dissimilar to phoning Phil Hogan to sort your headage payment, and illustrates the need for real local government reform to devolve responsibilities for transport, tourism and housing to local authorities. At present, no-one has to set out a vision, no-one is in charge and no-one is held to account for what is happening in our capital city. It’s time for that to change.

“The inability to put together a simple traffic management plan for the event reflects the wider transport problems that we are facing. The city is going to gridlock in the next five years and the responsibility for that lies with Fine Gael and Labour who have been asleep at the transport planning wheel.

“The accusation that Ministers only turned up at the summit for press photographs and to take credit for everything reflects a wider problem in the political system.”