End Gombeenism, end state funding TD's constituency clinics

PatsytheNazi

In a recent discussion on RTE's Frontline program regarding electing corrupt politicans down the years regardless of what they do ( Haughey, Bev Flynn, Lowry etc ), a guy invovled in public relations/media brought up the aspect of TD's consistuency offices and clinics. He said ( to my surprise) that they are mainly funded by the state, they are not funded by the TD's salary AND more importantly, is the source of main source of Clientelism* in this country ( I prefer to call it Gombeenism but whatever). I agree, here's why.

Now one important factor he metioned was that these consistuency offices and clinics actually do serve a function for the public, when your banging your head against the wall for planning permission to the local council, the HSE messing up etc after making XXXX amount of calls and letters, you have to go to your local TD. Agreed.

But his point was, that the vast majority of issues could be handled by Citizen's Advice Beaureau's, ( and if they cannot handle it, then the Citizen's Advice Beaureau could escalate it to the local TD if neccessary ). The point been, that people should get these issues dealt with as their right, and not be fooled into thinking that Lowry or whoever are doing them a favour or pulling a stroke for them. This to me is the main source of Gombeenism in the country, the belief that Jackie or Micheal or Bev are doing the individual/community a huge "personal favour", fixing the pot holes, putting a roof on the parish hall etc

Therefore he suggested that -
A) All funding to politican's consitituency's offices and clinics finished ( if they want to run them out of their own salary, somehow I'd doubt if they be so quick to spend money when it wasn't been covered by the state as it is now)

Replace them with Citizen's Advice Beaureau's - as that's all politican's consitituency's offices and clinics anyway.

It's a bit long I know but what's your thoughts folks ?


*Political clientelism describes the distribution of selective benefits to individuals or clearly defined groups in exchange for political support. With rare exceptions, academic observers have perceived clientelism in almost entirely negative terms.
http://personal.lse.ac.uk/hopkin/apsahopkin2006.pdf

meglome

The expenses of all types that TD's get need reform. However a start would be to set exactly what time a TD has to spend in the Dáil and in committees, doing government business generally. And opening the local shopping centre shouldn't be government business.

PatsytheNazi

meglome wrote: »

The expenses of all types that TD's get need reform. However a start would be to set exactly what time a TD has to spend in the Dáil and in committees, doing government business generally. And opening the local shopping centre shouldn't be government business.

Agreed. But by ending the cause of Gombeenism which is the root cause of bad government in the country i.e. voting for parasites and crooks masqueardng as Social Workers with their consistuency offices and clinics.

What has got the lowest of the low relected in Ireland so often ? The belief that Jackie or Micheal or Beverly are doing the individual/community a huge "personal favour", fixing the pot holes, putting a roof on the parish hall etc :rolleyes: It's the parish pump style politics that FF have built their rotten political culture from.

Consistuency offices and clinics, paid for by the tax payer as expenses and not out of the TD's salary, are glorified Citizen's Advice Office's, and the main source of "he/she is looking after me" ensuring that the 'cute hoor' gets relected time and time again. They should be replaced with Citizen's Advice Office's so people can see if their is an issue, they get it solved because it is their right, and not because some Gombeen politican is "looking after them".

Cookie_Monster

Rather than replace with Citizens Advice bureaus, which will cost more money, can local councillors not simply set in here, that is what they are for isn't it, dealing locally, with local people with problems and local issues?

Other than that agree totally with the OP

Callan57

PatsytheNazi wrote: »

Agreed. But by ending the cause of Gombeenism which is the root cause of bad government in the country i.e. voting for parasites and crooks masqueardng as Social Workers with their consistuency offices and clinics.

What has got the lowest of the low relected in Ireland so often ? The belief that Jackie or Micheal or Beverly are doing the individual/community a huge "personal favour", fixing the pot holes, putting a roof on the parish hall etc :rolleyes: It's the parish pump style politics that FF have built their rotten political culture from.

Consistuency offices and clinics, paid for by the tax payer as expenses and not out of the TD's salary, are glorified Citizen's Advice Office's, and the main source of "he/she is looking after me" ensuring that the 'cute hoor' gets relected time and time again. They should be replaced with Citizen's Advice Office's so people can see if their is an issue, they get it solved because it is their right, and not because some Gombeen politican is "looking after them".

The difference being that as far as I know Citizen's Advice Office's are staffed by volunteers.
Politicians have a vested interest in making it as difficult as possible for the citizen to access information or entitlements thus creating a 'client base' for their so called intervention & a feeling of obligation on the part of the citizen.

Definition of Politician = 'Someone who make themselves popular by giving people grants out of their own money'

munchkin_utd

100% agree.

local favours on the ground should be dealt with by councilors rather than NATIONAL politicans.

Theres so much stuff that is wrong in Ireland that needs laws to fix it that no politican sees being in their interest to persue -focusing instead on funerals and the "surgery".

i.e. chronic litering, anti social behaviour on the streets, disrespect to the guards, noise polution from anti social types that know theres shag all can be done about it, begging & stray horses giving the countries image a very bad reputation etc etc.

All just examples of where you could spend politicans time and efforts to shape laws to tackle issues rather than spend 99% of the time dealing with minor problems that are not relevant to the GREATER good.

Callan57

End Gombeenism, end state funding TD's constituency clinics

Seems fairly obvious to me ... in a time of scarce resources which should get priority? The health & welfare of citizens, the needs of the undepriviledged or TD's constituency 'clinics'.

BrianD

What is also annoying is how the civil service supports this kind of behaviour.

Take passports for example and TDs applying for passports on behalf of constituents! WTF? And it's facilitated by the civil service.

If you booked a holiday and you find you're passport is out the week before then tough luck. TDs should not be helping people with this kind of carelessness and laziness.

The Citizen advice Bureaus are great and they should be funded better.

PatsytheNazi

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

Rather than replace with Citizens Advice bureaus, which will cost more money, can local councillors not simply set in here, that is what they are for isn't it, dealing locally, with local people with problems and local issues?

Other than that agree totally with the OP

Yes, Citizens Advice bureaus will also cost money, office rent, stationary, phone bills etc. But that's life, I'm not proposing a perfect cost free system, everything these days costs money, even sports clubs etc

munchkin_utd wrote: »

100% agree.

local favours on the ground should be dealt with by councilors rather than NATIONAL politicans.

Theres so much stuff that is wrong in Ireland that needs laws to fix it that no politican sees being in their interest to persue -focusing instead on funerals and the "surgery".

i.e. chronic litering, anti social behaviour on the streets, disrespect to the guards, noise polution from anti social types that know theres shag all can be done about it, begging & stray horses giving the countries image a very bad reputation etc etc.

All just examples of where you could spend politicans time and efforts to shape laws to tackle issues rather than spend 99% of the time dealing with minor problems that are not relevant to the GREATER good.

As for councillor's, well the vast majority of councillor's are only part time. But sure, if they have say a pub, and Sean comes in and says " can you help me out, I'm tired of making endless calls to the HSE " etc then the councillor or TD or Senator for that matter can help out if they want.Fine, if the TD/councillior wants to do it on their own time and use his own pub/shop/resources, no worries. But the tax payer shouldn't be funding a glorified Citizens Advice office for the 'cute hoor' to con his constituency he's " looking after them all".

And as I said in the OP, if the Citizens Advice office is getting no where, they can be a mechanism to escalate it to the TD.

Callan57 wrote: »

The difference being that as far as I know Citizen's Advice Office's are staffed by volunteers.
Politicians have a vested interest in making it as difficult as possible for the citizen to access information or entitlements thus creating a 'client base' for their so called intervention & a feeling of obligation on the part of the citizen.

Definition of Politician = 'Someone who make themselves popular by giving people grants out of their own money'

I don't know much about Citizen's Advice Office's, but I presume their staffed by volunteers or people on Community Employment scheme's etc Quite a lot of them may be law students as I've had excellent advice on issues in the past from them.

But my OP is just throwing the idea of ending Gombeenism by replacing constituency offices with Citizen's Advice Office's. Indeed I wouldn't be surprised if this is the way personal/local issues are dealt with in Scandaniavan countires etc I'm not being sarcastic, but I cannot deal with all the issues in one thread on boards.ie. As I said, I'm just throwing out the proposal to see others opinions, thankfully they have been positive so far.

munchkin_utd

whats this "if" you were to replace with citizens advice bureaus.

Theres already a network of them around the country.
http://centres.citizensinformation.ie/

So many I cant count them. With the dozens of main ones opened all day daily, and the outreach ones for an afternoon once a week.

This ALREADY replaces the need for TDs to be advising the constituents on their rights on an ad hoc basis.

EDIT: the OP and most on the thread seem to know this. Some though dont appear to know that there is a very comprehensive service already there

PatsytheNazi

BrianD wrote: »

What is also annoying is how the civil service supports this kind of behaviour.

Take passports for example and TDs applying for passports on behalf of constituents! WTF? And it's facilitated by the civil service.

If you booked a holiday and you find you're passport is out the week before then tough luck. TDs should not be helping people with this kind of carelessness and laziness.

The Citizen advice Bureaus are great and they should be funded better.

Totally agreed. And that's one of the aspects of Gombeenism, the TD's etc should be on the case of the Public Service incompetence instead of chasing up planning permission or whatever for Sean or Mary etc So instead of the TD dealing with individual XXXX enquires as to why the consistuent's medical cards are taking so long to arrive, he should be on to the relevant people of that dept. and demanding answers and more efficiency for his consistuent's.

As things are, a TD/Senator is more like something out of Killnaskully dealing with pot holes etc than a proper elected individual to run the various aspects of the state.

PatsytheNazi

munchkin_utd wrote: »

whats this "if" you were to replace with citizens advice bureaus.

Theres already a network of them around the country.
http://centres.citizensinformation.ie/

So many I cant count them. With the dozens of main ones opened all day daily, and the outreach ones for an afternoon once a week.

This ALREADY replaces the need for TDs to be advising the constituents on their rights on an ad hoc basis.

EDIT: the OP and most on the thread seem to know this. Some though dont appear to know that there is a very comprehensive service already there

The OP does not know of the network of Citizen Advice offices around the country. I have been to the one on O'Connell St, Dublin, it's about 2 years ago since I last went to one. Nor am I aware of the costs of Citizen Advice offices, how many people a day they help, how many more people they would have to deal with if TD's clincis were closed down etc etc

The OP is just throwing the idea of ending Gombeenism by replacing constituency offices with Citizen's Advice Office's. But grand fine, if we could close down funding for constituency clinic's and the citizens advice offices take over ASAP, I'm all for it. I'm just throwing out the proposal to see others opinions.

anymore

PatsytheNazi wrote: »

Totally agreed. And that's one of the aspects of Gombeenism, the TD's etc should be on the case of the Public Service incompetence instead of chasing up planning permission or whatever for Sean or Mary etc So instead of the TD dealing with individual XXXX enquires as to why the consistuent's medical cards are taking so long to arrive, he should be on to the relevant people of that dept. and demanding answers and more efficiency for his consistuent's.

As things are, a TD/Senator is more like something out of Killnaskully dealing with pot holes etc than a proper elected individual to run the various aspects of the state.

In quite a lot of cases, TDs chasing planning permission are actually doing a disservice to the majority of their constituents. If people want help with planning permission, let them hire professionals.

Pete_Cavan

We have too much government and not enough accountability in this country. We have 166 TDs with most of them doing very little on a national level which means they have loads of time to spend on local issues to guarantee re-election for another term.

We also have 29 County Councils (one for each county plus two for Tipperary and 3 for Dublin), 5 city councils (Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick and Waterford), 5 borough councils (Clonmel, Drogheda, Kilkenny, Sligo and Wexford) as well as 75 town councils. We have too many layers of democracy in this country.

What we need is to devolve more power to local government, creating bigger local authorities with real power, and reduce the size of national government. We should have ~8 regional authorities (County Dublin plus 7 with populations of 500,000) whose elected officials can take care of local issues and leave the reduced national government to focus on national. This would also save a fortune through efficiencies and ending duplication.

anymore

Pete_Cavan wrote: »

We have too much government and not enough accountability in this country. We have 166 TDs with most of them doing very little on a national level which means they have loads of time to spend on local issues to guarantee re-election for another term.

We also have 29 County Councils (one for each county plus two for Tipperary and 3 for Dublin), 5 city councils (Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick and Waterford), 5 borough councils (Clonmel, Drogheda, Kilkenny, Sligo and Wexford) as well as 75 town councils. We have too many layers of democracy in this country.

What we need is to devolve more power to local government, creating bigger local authorities with real power, and reduce the size of national government. We should have ~8 regional authorities (County Dublin plus 7 with populations of 500,000) whose elected officials can take care of local issues and leave the reduced national government to focus on national. This would also save a fortune through efficiencies and ending duplication.

I am afraid that the average County Councilor is just a TD in waiting or his son/daughter, niece, nephew. Devolving more power will just mean gving power hungry local politicians even more reason to hang on to power. Every county in the country will be looking for its own Casino resort. The election of a FF TD to be chairman of the Dails Accounts Committee proves beyond a shadow of doubt that Irish politicans simply see office as something to be passed around amongst themselves. There is no accountability in irish politics. Enda Kenny will fight tooth and nail to senure that Bertie Ahern never has to suffer any real punitive sanctions for the role he has played in destroying the economy. Why, because politicians see themselves as a group apart - we the ordianary people are the real enemy and politicians are each other's allies.