Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

The finding of the report that caught my eye was that just 54% of those who responded said they feel they can influence decisions to alter their local area. The recommendation of the task force was that an effort should be made to try to increase this number to 65% by 2010, which would be a desirable achievement. I question whether the problem is not so much the willingness of people to participate as active citizens as it is the opaque systems with which they must deal. I constantly meet people who are more than willing to participate in their local community and to become involved in issues. However, having gone to an oral hearing of An Bord Pleanála about an issue where the inspector agrees with them and writes up a report to that effect, it is then overturned by the board because it is pursuing some Government policy on infrastructure. If such people want to pursue some issue at local level they go to the local authority and local councillors but they cannot do anything about it because it is down to the county manager or some other unelected personage who makes the decisions.

Is part of the trick in getting more people involved as active citizens in their local communities not a case of changing the bureaucracy they must deal with? People who are busy in their lives and who go once around the track with regard to an issue and find they are getting nowhere, are unlikely to go around it again. Are there plans in place to approach this matter from a different angle, not just from the angle of encouraging people to participate, but from the angle of changing and reforming the local government structures in particular so that when people participate they receive a response?

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