Statism fails again: "Cash-strapped councils may send us back to dark ages"

Permabear · 24-05-2010 11:33am #1

This post has been deleted.

gandalf · 24-05-2010 11:38am

It really begs the question what are these people doing in councils? 36 councils in a country the size of Ireland is a luxury we no longer can afford.

I do not agree with putting parks, roads and most services in the hands of the private sector though. But I think that the whole subject of councils needs to be addressed from the most fundimental level. At most we need 5 or 6 councils in this country and not 36.

anymore · 24-05-2010 11:51am

Local authorities are chronically unproductive and unaccountable. I agree it is imperative that as many of the services being monopolised by local authorities be privatised.
We are overpaying for badly deliverd services !
A Local authority services are one of the main sources of inflation in irish society,

Scofflaw · 24-05-2010 12:17pm

Ah, the standard libertarian dialectic - straight from "there is a problem with councils" to "having councils is the problem" with nothing in between.

amused,
Scofflaw

OhNoYouDidn't · 24-05-2010 12:21pm

Scofflaw wrote: »

Ah, the standard libertarian dialectic - straight from "there is a problem with councils" to "having councils is the problem" with nothing in between.

amused,
Scofflaw

Exactly. Its not as if there are examples of over paid private sector staff making appaling decisions, is there?

OhNoYouDidn't · 24-05-2010 12:22pm

anymore wrote: »

Local authorities are chronically unproductive and unaccountable. I agree it is imperative that as many of the services being monopolised by local authorities be privatised.
We are overpaying for badly deliverd services !
A Local authority services are one of the main sources of inflation in irish society,

Because that NEVER happens in the Irish private sector....

anymore · 24-05-2010 12:25pm

Scofflaw wrote: »

Ah, the standard libertarian dialectic - straight from "there is a problem with councils" to "having councils is the problem" with nothing in between.

amused,
Scofflaw

By all means provide the mssing link or some constructive comment !

SeanW · 24-05-2010 12:27pm

Scofflaw wrote: »

Ah, the standard libertarian dialectic - straight from "there is a problem with councils" to "having councils is the problem" with nothing in between.

amused,
Scofflaw

DF did mention that in Sweden, 2/3 of the road network is maintained by private associations ... last time I checked Sweden wasn't exactly a hotbed of libertarianism

anymore · 24-05-2010 12:28pm

OhNoYouDidn't wrote: »

Because that NEVER happens in the Irish private sector....

When it does, we cxan simply switch providers !
When my private waste disposal operators empties my bin, I ma fairly sure where the empty bin will be left !
That is one of the reason i left the Local authority. If I have an issue i can ring the freephone number , as i have done, will get to speak to a pleasnt and helpful operatibe who will be resolved. I will nto be treated like a fool as happens with my Local authority - i have the emails to prove this !

gandalf · 24-05-2010 12:30pm

Scofflaw wrote: »

Ah, the standard libertarian dialectic - straight from "there is a problem with councils" to "having councils is the problem" with nothing in between.

amused,
Scofflaw

Not from me, we need councils, I just believe we have too many councils duplicating too much administration and not delivering value for money to services for the tax paying worker in the state.

bmaxi · 24-05-2010 12:34pm

I'm not a Communist or even a red hot Socialist but I get tired of reading about how well the private sector will run everything. The banks were private sector, Dell was private sector et, cetera, et cetera.
I have worked in the public sector and in the private sector, in multinational companies and there is incompetence, waste and mismanagement in both, the difference being that you don't tend to hear about private sector waste. Indeed I have seen deliberate waste in the private sector, purely for the purpose of making a senior executive's point and for massaging figures before an AGM. It is a certainty that these decisions were not taken in the public interest.
There has to be a social element to how public services are run. Are we to leave people to die at the side of the road because somebody decides they don't have the right insurance to pay for transport to hospital, or leave families to suffocate in tower blocks because the privately run Fire service doesn't have a contract to service that building?
I know these are extremes but the private sector is not the panacea for all our ills, how can it be when its sole raison d'etre is profit? What is needed is strict regulation and accountability, something which is sorely lacking at the moment and which I'm confident the Swedes have off to a fine art.

ejmaztec · 24-05-2010 12:36pm

I'd be all for taking pot-hole repairs away from the remit of the local authority, especially if they all "repair" potholes like they do in Kerry.

Shovelling a bit of tarmac into a hole, flattening it a bit (sometimes rolling the wheels of a truck over it two or three times:eek:), then having the rain wash it out 10 minutes later, is pure genius.

A complete cretin, given a few quid, could do a proper job.

anymore · 24-05-2010 12:40pm

bmaxi wrote: »

I'm not a Communist or even a red hot Socialist but I get tired of reading about how well the private sector will run everything. The banks were private sector, Dell was private sector et, cetera, et cetera.
I have worked in the public sector and in the private sector, in multinational companies and there is incompetence, waste and mismanagement in both, the difference being that you don't tend to hear about private sector waste. Indeed I have seen deliberate waste in the private sector, purely for the purpose of making a senior executive's point and for massaging figures before an AGM. It is a certainty that these decisions were not taken in the public interest.
There has to be a social element to how public services are run. Are we to leave people to die at the side of the road because somebody decides they don't have the right insurance to pay for transport to hospital, or leave families to suffocate in tower blocks because the privately run Fire service doesn't have a contract to service that building?
I know these are extremes but the private sector is not the panacea for all our ills, how can it be when its sole raison d'etre is profit? What is needed is strict regulation and accountability, something which is sorely lacking at the moment and which I'm confident the Swedes have off to a fine art.

Havent you heard about the young kids dying in HSE care ?

dan_d · 24-05-2010 12:40pm

Some days it feels like the whole bloody show is crumbling down around our ears........I find myself wondering more and more frequently lately why the hell we don't have more qualified people running for government, instead of the endless stream of Lawyers/teachers and randomers. Would it be too much to ask that a few nurses/doctors/engineers/economists/accountants etc try to get into Gov in this god-forsaken hell hole? People who actually solve problems for a living and maybe have some experience of what's going on out there????
(I'm feeling extremely pessimistic today!

)

Sulmac · 24-05-2010 12:41pm

Giving local authorities the power to raise their own revenue would help to combat this problem.

Even better, as has been said already, would be reducing the number of authorities and getting rid of the pointless town and borough councils.

I've said this before, but basing local government on the eight regions would be ideal, as they are all (with the exception of the Border region) based around one large city/town. This is what we need for better co-ordination of council services and more sustainable development.

anymore · 24-05-2010 12:43pm

ejmaztec wrote: »

I'd be all for taking pot-hole repairs away from the remit of the local authority, especially if they all "repair" potholes like they do in Kerry.

Shovelling a bit of tarmac into a hole, flattening it a bit (sometimes rolling the wheels of a truck over it two or three times:eek:), then having the rain wash it out 10 minutes later, is pure genius.

A complete cretin, given a few quid, could do a proper job.

In my part of Cork, the temporary filling is not even flattened down anymore - they rely on passing traffic to do it. meanwhile they use two employess to water roadside flower troughs- one to do the watering and one to do the driving. The PS unions really decide what can and cannot be done and management go meekly along with it. One library in my area does not open on Saturdays !

Permabear · 24-05-2010 12:54pm

This post has been deleted.

Scofflaw · 24-05-2010 1:27pm

anymore wrote: »

Ah, the standard libertarian dialectic - straight from "there is a problem with councils" to "having councils is the problem" with nothing in between.

By all means provide the mssing link or some constructive comment !

That is the constructive comment - I've pointed out that there is a whole missing argument between the observation and the conclusion. If one wished to persuade people other than libertarians, it would be better to have a chain of logic in between, demonstrating that the job of councils could in every case be done better and at least as equitably by private companies in the Irish marketplace, and that people would find that preferable. I appreciate that to libertarians that's a self-evident truth, but then Marxism makes sense to Marxists.

I'm not wedded in any sense to the idea of councils as the necessary provider of all local services (although they're probably better than central government in several ways), but I'm certainly not persuaded by arguments like "the Council hasn't fixed my potholes therefore we should abolish them".

cordially,
Scofflaw

gandalf · 24-05-2010 1:35pm

Scofflaw wrote: »

I'm not wedded in any sense to the idea of councils as the necessary provider of all local services (although they're probably better than central government in several ways), but I'm certainly not persuaded by arguments like "the Council hasn't fixed my potholes therefore we should abolish them".

I agree with you on this.

The problem is that people don't realise that the council "haven't fixed my potholes" or "opened the library" or "cleaned the park/streets up" because they don't have the money to do so.

Unfortunately one of the reasons for lack of funds would be the number of councils and administrative duplication across the board followed by a lack of co-ordination in delivering these services.

We need to redesign the whole structure of local government so it is designed towards delivering resources to front line services in the most efficient manner possible. No one can argue that it is currently in a position to do this.

Permabear · 24-05-2010 1:55pm

This post has been deleted.

bmaxi · 24-05-2010 2:01pm

anymore wrote: »

Havent you heard about the young kids dying in HSE care ?

I have indeed and I've also heard of old people living and dying in squalid conditions in private sector nursing homes, for which they were paying a premium rate.
I'm not interested in points scoring, I am quite prepared to concede there are areas where the private sector can and do the job well but I'm not convinced a large, unwieldy and unregulated private sector will perform any better than the public sector.

Nodin · 24-05-2010 3:16pm

Indeed. Having never witnessed the public sector, I can only say that if it truly is worse than the private, we're all doomed.

Wolfe Tone · 24-05-2010 4:16pm

The way I see it the councils are a necessity to provide these basic services. If they were privatized I believe that the ultimate result would be a private, rather than a public monopoly. The Irish market is too small to support multiple private enterprises providing these services.
Another scenario would be that the companies would simply divide the county into "Territories" and have monopolies on the go within these areas. Privatization is not the answer here.

Permabear · 24-05-2010 4:32pm

This post has been deleted.

P. Breathnach · 24-05-2010 4:38pm

If no funds are provided for road maintenance, then the private sector is unlikely to be any more efficient than the public sector.

Scofflaw · 24-05-2010 5:01pm

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

As usual, you've had to grossly misrepresent everyone else's point of view in order to score what you believe to be a point. You have a very dogmatic approach - the market will fix all - and so you attempt to represent everyone who disagrees with you as holding the diametrically opposite view, even though virtually nobody holds such a view.

The reason everyone else tells you about the failures of the private sector is not because everyone else is a relentless statist, but because you're apparently entirely blind to any faults the market may have, and people are trying to enlighten you.

Please stop misrepresenting everyone else's viewpoints. It's definitely approaching soapboxing at this stage.

regards,
Scofflaw

SlabMurphy · 24-05-2010 5:12pm

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Not taking away the share of the blame of the ineptitude/cronyism of the councils, but isn't the root of the problem in the hands of the private sector ( the developers ) as they are the ones who owe the councils €400m ?

And if we had say the roads etc in the hands of the private sector, wouldn't we just have zombie roads along with zombie estates, zombie hotels etc as our experiences have shown us just how well unregulated capitalism works ?

bmaxi · 24-05-2010 5:21pm

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Not so. I don't have a strong preference for whomever is repairing the roads, collecting the bins, running the hospitals etc. I just think the profit motive will always outweigh the common good. You bemoan the fact your local library is only open two days a week. Given that you live in a remote area it would be interesting to see how many days it would open were it in private hands, indeed if it would open at all. One thing I am sure of, it wouldn't be free.

silverharp · 24-05-2010 5:50pm

bmaxi wrote: »

Not so. I don't have a strong preference for whomever is repairing the roads, collecting the bins, running the hospitals etc. I just think the profit motive will always outweigh the common good. You bemoan the fact your local library is only open two days a week. Given that you live in a remote area it would be interesting to see how many days it would open were it in private hands, indeed if it would open at all. One thing I am sure of, it wouldn't be free.

there is a good question here , what would living patterns be like if urban taxpayers didnt have to support rural dwellers via the "live where you like (at someone elses expense) policies of the state"?
The problem for people like DF is that he is being heavily taxed (unless he is a hobby farmer

) but yet is at the mercy of monopoly providers of services.

fontanalis · 24-05-2010 6:21pm

Scofflaw wrote: »

Ah, the standard libertarian dialectic - straight from "there is a problem with councils" to "having councils is the problem" with nothing in between.

amused,
Scofflaw

Well the market will touch the free enterprises with it's noodly apendage and everything will be alright because the businesses are out for the little guy.
Funny he mentions about people doing the potholes themselves, I think he advocated this in the threads about the severe frost in the past winter, and what was it donegalfella said about the people straned by hurricane katrina. Instead of privatising everyhting why not go for an efficient public sector?

Scofflaw · 24-05-2010 6:36pm

silverharp wrote: »

there is a good question here , what would living patterns be like if urban taxpayers didnt have to support rural dwellers via the "live where you like (at someone elses expense) policies of the state"?
The problem for people like DF is that he is being heavily taxed (unless he is a hobby farmer ) but yet is at the mercy of monopoly providers of services.

Interesting that you should run the two of those together - the chances are, of course, that the average rural dweller is not being taxed to a level sufficient to pay for the services he/she receives, however inadequate they may feel those services to be - otherwise, there would presumably be rather less need for the steady flow of subsidy from city to country.

cordially,
Scofflaw

bmaxi · 24-05-2010 6:45pm

fontanalis wrote: »

Well the market will touch the free enterprises with it's noodly apendage and everything will be alright because the businesses are out for the little guy.
Funny he mentions about people doing the potholes themselves, I think he advocated this in the threads about the severe frost in the past winter, and what was it donegalfella said about the people straned by hurricane katrina. Instead of privatising everyhting why not go for an efficient public sector?

I'm afraid this would be an utopia too far. While we have gombeen members of parliament appointing overpaid, under qualified lackeys to senior positions, it is unachievable. The problem is exacerbated by a gombeen public, who continue to elect said gombeen politicians, for the price of a pint or a perceived family loyalty and that the gombeen politicians who populate the upper echelons of the political parties will choose the yes men we will be asked to vote for, so prolonging the gombeen lineage.

Permabear · 24-05-2010 6:50pm

This post has been deleted.

silverharp · 24-05-2010 6:56pm

Scofflaw wrote: »

Interesting that you should run the two of those together - the chances are, of course, that the average rural dweller is not being taxed to a level sufficient to pay for the services he/she receives, however inadequate they may feel those services to be - otherwise, there would presumably be rather less need for the steady flow of subsidy from city to country.

cordially,
Scofflaw

thats part of the problem, its hard to know which way is up. Neighbour A could be a PAYE employee paying 40%, where his taxes go into a central pool yet he has to commute on crappy minor roads whereas hobby farmer B pays no direct tax but again has to use crappy roads and other infrastructure.
The economic signals are confused , so we end up with an economy that probably has more lower quality and inefficient infrastructure then would otherwise be the case.

bmaxi · 24-05-2010 7:01pm

Scofflaw wrote: »

Interesting that you should run the two of those together - the chances are, of course, that the average rural dweller is not being taxed to a level sufficient to pay for the services he/she receives, however inadequate they may feel those services to be - otherwise, there would presumably be rather less need for the steady flow of subsidy from city to country.

cordially,
Scofflaw

The removal of rates in 1977 was a huge mistake. It left Councils with no control over what, if any, funds were to be spent in their area. Now, it appears, the funds are allocated based on the area's proximity to the constituency of a Government minister.

jimmycrackcorm · 24-05-2010 7:10pm

All I can say is that my bins are collected now by a private operator who provide the service at 20% less and have on-line billing, dd payments and text me the night before collection to remind me which bin to put out.

if that is an example to compare against the county council service then roll on private road maintenance. The difference a private sector operator would make is that they would recognize that it is more profitable to six the potholes properly so as to reduce the cost of ongoing maintenance.

CoalBucket · 24-05-2010 8:14pm

Waste disposal is a good example of the private sector work being introduced succesfully.

In Cork the waste disposal service is a cut throat business with a number of operators competing all over the county. However the Councils also compete in this market.

I do not think the Councils should be abolished but they should be made to compete and operate professionally and effectively.

If they cannot operate in the open market they are either too expensive or the are not operating effectively and competitively.

The government are constantly issuing the mantra to shop around, it's about time they done it themselves.

Why should public money be spent on ineffective services.

ejmaztec · 24-05-2010 8:54pm

CoalBucket wrote: »

Waste disposal is a good example of the private sector work being introduced succesfully.

In Cork the waste disposal service is a cut throat business with a number of operators competing all over the county. However the Councils also compete in this market.

I do not think the Councils should be abolished but they should be made to compete and operate professionally and effectively.

If they cannot operate in the open market they are either too expensive or the are not operating effectively and competitively.

The government are constantly issuing the mantra to shop around, it's about time they done it themselves.

Why should public money be spent on ineffective services.

It probably is a good idea for private contractors in general, to be taken on by the local authorities, on condition of complete transparency, instead of someone getting a contract off the back of a nod and a wink, with a brown envelope thrown in to clinch a deal.

Permabear · 24-05-2010 9:13pm

This post has been deleted.

Overheal · 24-05-2010 9:26pm

ROI is 27,000 sq miles with 26 (?) counties and councils

SC is 32,000 sq miles with 46 counties and councils

i dont see the problem

Scofflaw · 24-05-2010 9:33pm

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

That's because on average rural communities like the community you are joining cannot support a level of services equivalent to that in Dublin, but do not feel that they should be left with no services either - and those of us who pay taxes in Dublin are willing to subsidise them so that they have more in the way of services than they can afford (even though, unlike you, we'll never see any benefit from it at all). I'm not sure what your poorer neighbours would do if your model was adopted in Donegal - but we're never realistically likely to find out.

regards,
Scofflaw

Sulmac · 24-05-2010 9:33pm

Overheal wrote: »

ROI is 27,000 sq miles with 26 (?) counties and councils

SC is 32,000 sq miles with 46 counties and councils

i dont see the problem

34 county and city councils (upper tier), 80 town and borough councils (lower tier).

Cool Mo D · 24-05-2010 9:44pm

The big problem with councils stems from the imbalance between councils responsibilities and their accountability.

Think of it this way. Councils are not responsible for raising any taxes in this country that affect the average person. They exist entirely on central government money, and rates, which the normal person does not have to pay. Therefore, if they piss away all their money, it is the national government that is going to be on the hook. Everyone knows that 'real' power rests with central government, and if local government turns to muck, it won't be them paying the cost.

What needs to happen is that local government should be responsible for raising and spending money independent central government. Therefore, if you're local government makes a mess of it, you get burned. After a few scandals, I believe that people will start to pay a lot more attention to who exactly gets into power in county hall.

Also, central government jealously holds onto power in this country - local government is seen as a training ground for up-and-comers, along with being a dumping ground for no-hopers with connections to the local political machine. Forcing the electorate to pay attention to them, or else, can only change it for the better.

In the medium term, local government should have control over licensing laws, including opening hours, local transport planning, and many other local issues that should vary from place to place.

But this can never happen until local government is taken seriously, which means standing on it's own two feet, and being moved away from the begging bowl mentality, of spending as much central government money as possible.

thebman · 24-05-2010 9:54pm

dan_d wrote: »

Some days it feels like the whole bloody show is crumbling down around our ears........I find myself wondering more and more frequently lately why the hell we don't have more qualified people running for government, instead of the endless stream of Lawyers/teachers and randomers. Would it be too much to ask that a few nurses/doctors/engineers/economists/accountants etc try to get into Gov in this god-forsaken hell hole? People who actually solve problems for a living and maybe have some experience of what's going on out there????
(I'm feeling extremely pessimistic today! )

When some public servants have their positions kept for them when in politics, is it really any surprise we end up with them dominating our politics?

Its not democracy when one sector doesn't have to worry about what they will do if they don't make it.

It seems we need complete reform from the top down of our political system ATM. Wh

Overheal · 24-05-2010 9:58pm

Sulmac wrote: »

34 county and city councils (upper tier), 80 town and borough councils (lower tier).

i dont even know how many councils SC has but I can say theres at least 1 per county if not more per metro area.

edit: http://www.state.sc.us/cogs/

perhaps more streamlined then? idk. There appear to be 46 county councils, 10 regional councils, and im sure a number of city councils not listed here. Just about anything classed as a city should have one. So these should all have a council, and the list of towns would have town councils (for example the Bluffton town council or Columbia city council): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_South_Carolina

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_towns_in_South_Carolina

long story short I dont think the problem is the structure, its the implementation.

irishh_bob · 24-05-2010 9:58pm

ejmaztec wrote: »

I'd be all for taking pot-hole repairs away from the remit of the local authority, especially if they all "repair" potholes like they do in Kerry.

Shovelling a bit of tarmac into a hole, flattening it a bit (sometimes rolling the wheels of a truck over it two or three times:eek:), then having the rain wash it out 10 minutes later, is pure genius.

A complete cretin, given a few quid, could do a proper job.

its called the band - aid methood

Euro_Kraut · 24-05-2010 10:09pm

Donegalfella, what is your source that 2/3 of the Swedish Road Network is maintained by the private sector?

anymore · 24-05-2010 10:11pm

Cool Mo D wrote: »

The big problem with councils stems from the imbalance between councils responsibilities and their accountability.

Think of it this way. Councils are not responsible for raising any taxes in this country that affect the average person. They exist entirely on central government money, and rates, which the normal person does not have to pay. Therefore, if they piss away all their money, it is the national government that is going to be on the hook. Everyone knows that 'real' power rests with central government, and if local government turns to muck, it won't be them paying the cost.

What needs to happen is that local government should be responsible for raising and spending money independent central government. Therefore, if you're local government makes a mess of it, you get burned. After a few scandals, I believe that people will start to pay a lot more attention to who exactly gets into power in county hall.

Also, central government jealously holds onto power in this country - local government is seen as a training ground for up-and-comers, along with being a dumping ground for no-hopers with connections to the local political machine. Forcing the electorate to pay attention to them, or else, can only change it for the better.

In the medium term, local government should have control over licensing laws, including opening hours, local transport planning, and many other local issues that should vary from place to place.

But this can never happen until local government is taken seriously, which means standing on it's own two feet, and being moved away from the begging bowl mentality, of spending as much central government money as possible.

Giving Councils more revenue will simply let Councils continue to wastefully squander local tax money - it will do nothing whatsoever to make Councils efficent.

Overheal · 24-05-2010 10:18pm

anymore wrote: »

Giving Councils more revenue will simply let Councils continue to wastefully squander local tax money - it will do nothing whatsoever to make Councils efficent.

Do county councils not collect an independent county tax?

anymore · 24-05-2010 10:23pm

Overheal wrote: »

Do county councils not collect an independent county tax?

Motor car tax is paid to the County Authority and they also levy rates on commercial businesses and commercial water taxes also, I believe. Some authorities also collect local parking taxes and all local authorities get a block grant from the government.

Overheal · 24-05-2010 10:28pm

Well then structure and financing dont sound like the issue. There you have a case of (you guessed it) ineffective, even greedy bearaucrats getting elected in for the leather chair.

As for accountability and re: floods theres clearly a lot of additional work to be done in rounding out which level of government is responsible for what.

Statism fails again: "Cash-strapped councils may send us back to dark ages"

Comments