Seminar on Citizen empowerment 'a great success'

by Tara SOS Sun Oct 09, 2005 14:45

Press release to follow

Cllr Joe Reilly, Meath County Council & Julitta Clancy Tara Heritage Preservation Group

Ian Lumley AnTaisce, Brian Guckian Transport Researcher & Tom Farrelly Irish Transport Users Association

by organise Sun Oct 09, 2005 21:49

what was a great success, the photos?, is their a report or press release available?

by THPS Tue Oct 11, 2005 20:26

Some 60 people from Meath and around the country met to discuss ‘Empowering The Citizen: Do You Have a Voice?’. Put bluntly by many of the speakers, the answer was "No".

Instances were given where people felt that the "end result" of major projects had already been decided before any process of consultation was undertaken, and that to express dissent or objection was to be labelled as "eccentric, awkward or against progress".

The M3 motorway was mentioned as an example of how the ordinary citizen can be shut out of the process of decision-making, but so also were super-dumps, incinerators, gas lines, road tolls and a super-prison.

Martin Kay, a researcher attached to the Department of Sociology and to the Kemmy School of Business at the University of Limerick, was the main speaker.

He has eight years’ practical experience of the Public Private Partnership (PPP) culture in Britain, working with public, private and community partners in a major hospital redevelopment project.

Since 2001, he has been researching the PPP programme in Ireland, concentrating on the construction of new tolled motorways. His doctoral thesis has been supported by the Royal Irish Academy and will be defended this autumn.

He said that, at the heart of the continuing Irish success story, was an aggressive pursuit of new infrastructure using the PPP model of procurement. They authorised new forms of governance to take certain executive actions in the name of the State.

"These actions affect the lives of citizens but without attaching more than responsibility for project delivery to the power so delegated. The model is British in origin, although France and the US have long pursued their own versions. It is increasingly seen as the optimum global solution to deficits of infrastructure and public service."

PPPs were perceived as both legitimate and accountable. "It is the observation of the author, however, after nearly a decade and a half of involvement in PPPs, that citizens affected by them may not always agree. It is from such citizens that civil society groups emerge seeking to participate," Mr Kay said.

He supports PPP procurement but has conducted empirical research to establish that the current model is unlikely to be accountable to the citizens affected by projects.

Dublin MEP Proinsias de Rossa, who also attended the seminar, said that the idea of

a ‘petition system’ in which people’s views on a certain project or a grievance could be heard should be taken up in Ireland. Virtually every EU member state had such a system but this country did not.

There was a clear need for reform of democratic institutions, he said. One problem lay in the fact that institutions did not reform themselves from within, but he could sense a "bushfire of issues" igniting around Ireland, and there was a deep sense of frustration among people in having themselves heard.

He said: "The biggest problem I see in people’s capacity to deal with issues is that they discover them too late in the day. There should be an obligation on county managers to inform people about any proposal in their catchment area which may affect them.

"Proposals like the M3 motorway and Carrickmines were fully formed before they were known to the people. People should be fully informed at conception level."

Ina Kavanagh from Longford said that she and others had set up a website - www.planningmatters.ie - so that people tackling issues around the country could communicate through the internet.

Groups campaigning on issues could pass on their experiences and knowledge to other groups and the movement was spreading in Munster and Connaught.

Julitta Clancy of the Meath Archaeological and Historical Society said that major infrastructural projects were not open to sufficient scrutiny. She said that Duchas had a "cost relationship" with the National Roads Authority (NRA) which was taking away its independence.

by eeekkkk Tue Oct 11, 2005 20:58

bad buzz

not the best way to get orgamanised

by Course it does.. Tue Oct 11, 2005 21:38

Foloow the link..!

by eeeekkkkk Tue Oct 11, 2005 21:40

.