MakingSense@MakingSenseInfo
The soft coup perpetrated by FG in 2011, of which the Local Government Reform Act 2014 was a component part, is critical to appreciate too because this power shift saw a dilution of representative democracy and its replacement with what we have today - a ‘Stakeholder State’ - in which power is distributed between the Government/Media, Corporations/Banks, NGOs/Civil Society and Supranational Institutions and largely to the exclusion of the participation by the people.
We didn’t notice the shift because the system retained a familiar edifice: National elections, Dáil Éireann, Policy Manifestos, a Public Service Broadcasting, etc.
The reform agenda itself was two-pronged: structural changes in governance AND the top-down imposition of hyper liberal social transformation. Both spanned the entire decade between Troika and Covid and along with bringing about real changes to the how the state worked at a functional level, both served as a very useful smokescreen for the Government’s continued pursuit of pre-crash financial policies, after a similar pro-financialization/international capital agenda led to the catastrophic crash of the economy.
In fact, such was the success of this distraction that Enda Kenny could sell us Constitutional Conventions, Citizens Assemblies and Same sex marriage at the front door, whilst Michael Noonan was at the back door, smuggling in our old friends the ‘bondholders’ whom we only recently had bailed out, in the form of Vulture Funds. Ffwd 14-15 years later and we can see the real impact of that policy.
The ‘reforms’ in that decade, if anything, put the country onto an even faster track towards technocracy as it led to the rise of managerialism, the migration of sovereignty/authority abroad and the embedding of consultative networks like the PPN at local level. The latter happened at the same time Ireland was working on the development of the SDGs (2014) with the PPNs becoming part of the implementation machinery for realizing the SDGs.
The net result of all this, is a situation whereby politicians act today as though they are not in the service of the people - frankly because they’re not. Instead, they serve ‘Stakeholders’. Senior public servants today act as a transmission belt between other Stakeholders ie Brussels, the NGO sector and the UN or WHO on issues like hate speech, climate change, migration and the digital services act.
As a result, ministers are in reality functionally subordinate to senior public servants. These days, a good minister is one who simply does what he/she is told to do by the Departmental Secretary General. Ministers who take this approach are ideal cabinet hires because they can be easily moved around between departments.
limerickppn.ie/sustainable-de…
