The importance of MPCs for local democracy

BY ROISIN DE ROSA

Cobh Sinn Féin Councillor Kieran McCarthy

Newly elected Sinn Féin councillors in East Cork, Cobh, Middleton, Fermoy and Mallow are promoting party resolution calling on their councils to appoint full-time youth officers to develop youth facilities in their towns. "We thought it more effective if we all raised the issue together in the separate town councils," says Frank O'Neill, a Sinn Féin activist in East Cork.

Kieran McCarthy, elected to the council in Cobh, led off on Monday last. He spoke of the importance of youth issues across all our areas. "Constant complaining about youth, about anti-social activity, or underage drinking, or just young people 'hanging about on street corners', or 'at the shops', happens all the time, but young people have nowhere to go to talk together, especially when families live in overcrowded conditions."

"We want the council to take responsibility: to recognise that young people are as much entitled to the services of their local council as adults," Kieran says.

"Needs in each area are different. It's about talking with young people to hear what they want. This would be the youth officer's job, to talk to and engage with young people in each of these towns and come forward to the council with plans that reflect the views of the young people themselves".

Kieran says the council should have a subcommittee to follow up and appoint a full-time youth person. The Town Clerk received the resolution with approval but gave her opinion that it was too early to set up a Municipal Policy Committee (MPC) on youth because the council is awaiting the Minister's guidelines on MPCs, which are in preparation.

MPCs are key forums in which the local community can participate and engage in the formulation of policy by the council. They are, and were designed to be, when first introduced in 1999, a crucial aspect of "Better Local Government".

The Local Government Act of 2001 states quite clearly that a Town Council "may establish a Municipal Policy Committee to consider matters connected with the formulation, development, monitoring and review of policy which relate to the functions of the town council and to advise the town council on those matters".

The Department of Environment confirms that the Minister has issued guidelines for Strategic Policy Committees, and no further guidelines are needed, awaited, or even expected, concerning MPCs. In fact, several councils, including Bray and Shannon, have already established MPCs.

These committees mean greater participation of the community in local government and hold out the possibility of an end to councillors, once elected, carrying on without regard to the people who live in their areas.

"The days when councillors and management could run a cosy cartel which ignores the people of the area, leaving them without a voice or a forum in which to express their views, are well gone," says Kieran.

Councillor Tom Ryan of the Association of Municipal Authorities, who was involved in the working group to consider the guidelines for SPCs, says, "the issue of the establishment of MPCs is of key importance in all local authorities.

"What use is it to be looking for greater powers for councils if we cannot even claim the powers enacted for local authorities in existing legislation?" he asks. "The issue of the MPCs is key to all local authorities and will be prominently on the agenda of our next AMA meeting in September."

Meanwhile, the SPCs, which have at least been established by county and city councils, are up for their five-year review. Dublin City Councillor Daithí Doolan, chair of one of Dublin's SPCs, dealing with economic policy, planning and EU affairs, says the council has exciting plans to use these committees as they were originally intended - for policy development, for favourably impacting on council meetings, and as a direct voice for consultation with government ministers.

"It is an important project for all councillors, no matter their party, to begin to take up their real remit, which is to govern this city in consultation with the people who live here," he says.