Councillors asked council managers for a report in February 2022. They’re still waiting.

Dublin city councillors on the transport committee backed a motion in February 2022 asking for a report from council staff.

But in response to a request for that report under the Freedom of Information Act, Dublin City Council said this month that its staff had not drawn it up – two and a half years later.

Dublin City Council’s press office has not replied to queries sent Tuesday morning asking why its staff have not drawn up the report, and whether it is common for staff to ignore requests from councillors for reports.

It’s not only reports that councillors – who are elected to serve on the 63-member body – say they sometimes can’t get out of council staff and managers, who are employed in the executive branch of the council.

Councillors also complain that officials sometimes don’t attend meetings, or answer questions for them – or, more often, take actions they ask for.

Labour Councillor Dermot Lacey, who was first co-opted onto the council in 1993, often points to legal changes that successive governments have made that have taken power away from councillors – shifting it to the central government, and council managers.

At a meeting of the council’s South East Area Committee on 14 October, he returned to this theme once again.

“Newer councillors might not realise how much less power you have than I did when I first came on this council,” Lacey said. “It just, bit by bit, it slips away.”

Motion ignored

At the February 2022 meeting of the transport strategic policy committee (SPC), Green Party councillors Carolyn Moore, Caroline Conroy and Michael Pidgeon proposed a motion.

They wanted the committee to call on the council to provide at least two traffic or community wardens, on a trial basis.

To assess the role of wardens in helping to stop illegal parking, and issue spot fines for littering and dog fouling.

“Having a visible presence in our communities tackling these issues would help to curb and address anti-social behaviour and provide for safer, cleaner communities,” the motion said.

At the same meeting, independent Councillor Christy Burke asked about traffic wardens. The minutes of the meeting say, “Members agreed to pass both motions to Chief Executive for report to future SPC.”

But on 11 October, an administrative officer at the council refused a request under the Freedom of Information Act for that report.

“I can confirm that there has been, as yet, no follow up report to the SPC and the record you seek does not exist,” he wrote.

On Tuesday, Moore, the Green Party councillor, said councillors often have to follow up on requests for reports again and again and again.

“In a lot of cases, it requires the councilors in question to keep returning to the fact that they haven’t seen the report yet,” she said.

“Sometimes, as a councillor, you do feel that about 90 percent of your workload is following up on things” with council staff, she said.

Councillors have raised the idea of bringing in community wardens – which Cork city has had for years – for Dublin city a few times, but council staff just kind of brush it off without really engaging with the idea.

“We don’t ever hear from the council or, you know, from the chief executive, ‘Well, sorry, but either this is a bad idea and we can’t do it because X, Y and Z’, or, you know, ‘Sorry, we just don’t have the resources to do it’,” Moore said.

Beyond reports

It’s not just about getting reports out of council managers, either.

At the 14 October meeting of the South East Area Committee, Lacey, the long-time Labour councillor, called on a council staff member for an answer to a question that had come up in the meeting.

It was a hybrid session, with some people present in the council chamber in City Hall, and some joining online and talking to the people in the council chamber.

The staff member didn’t answer when Lacey asked her to come into the discussion – she apparently wasn’t (virtually) at the meeting, at least not right then. Lacey, as chair, took a moment to note her absence.

“A lot of officials who you expect to be at these meetings aren’t at these meetings,” Lacey said. “Access to the senior officials involved is one of those key things that you should be able to expect.”

Nevermind trying to get staff to take actions councillors ask for. Which, to be fair, aren’t always a good idea, or legal, or even possible.

At the meeting, Lacey was asking about a yield sign he wanted installed in Donnybrook. He said he’d raise it with staff at every meeting until they arranged for it to be put up.

“There was a time the staff in the city council actually did things the city council wanted them to do,” Lacey said.