Household charge letter fallout continues

THE “Banner bashing” that resulted from Clare County Council’s decision to include a reminder about the household charge with third level grant applications has led to the local authority being urged to inform elected representatives of any announcements of public interest prior to the media being informed.
The reminder letters hit the headlines when they were incorrectly believed to be an attempt by the council to withhold the grants if the household tax is not paid.
Clare County Council has since stated that this was not the case. However, at this week’s meeting of Clare County Council, Councillor PJ Ryan described how he and other councillors received phone calls from the media in the early hours asking about the matter, which they knew nothing about.
He told how he had called to a shop and received a “barrage of abuse”.
“It’s absolutely crazy that something like this can happen. There is serious technology available now and it wouldn’t take much to text councillors so they are aware,” he said.
Councillor PJ Kelly commented, “Those involved had grand intent but, looking back, a statement should not have been allowed out that could have a different interpretation, that could be twisted to suit a purpose. I was amazed at the Banner bashing on the radio,” he said.
Councillor Pascal Fitzgerald commented that the issue “caught all councillors on the hop” with the matter being discussed on facebook within hours.
County manager Tom Coughlan told the councillors that, at the time, the local authority was unaware that the matter would become an issue in the media. If so, he would have informed the councillors.
“We issued a number of letters and an individual decided to put it up on facebook and the first I heard of it was at 11 o’clock at night. The next morning, Morning Ireland ran a story that we were refusing to pay grants, but that was not the way it was. It was never our intention, we never said we would withhold any grants. We didn’t know it would break the way it did in the media.
“The decision to send out the letter was an administration decision on foot of what councillors said at the July meeting, as a way of raising awareness of the household charge and of the services that we provide. We did get an increase of payment as a result of the letters,” he said.
Mr Coughlan went on, “Every day decisions are made and it is impossible to tell councillors before we do everything. To have that interaction is impossible, you make the policy decisions and I have to try and implement them.”
He stated that if the council were aware of a breaking story in the media they would contact councillors, adding “given all the social media out there, it’s impossible to manage.”
Councillor Christy Curtin stated that the lack of knowledge about the reminder left councillors in an “embarrassing position”. He described the letter as “ill conceived and its contents created unnecessary confusion and misunderstanding in relation to the processing of these grants”.
Councillor Curtin proposed a motion that, in advance of any proposed change to administrative practice arising from the implementation of the council’s budgetary programme, that the elected members be “appropriately informed”. He also called for consideration to be given by council management to a new protocol of information release on on-going operational programmes and work schemes.
Michael McNamara, senior executive officer responded to the motion. “In terms of administrative practice, decisions are made by the council executive with a view to implementing policy decisions of the council made by the elected members. Once a policy decision is made by the council, it is then a matter for management to implement same using whatever administrative practices that are required.
“It is not feasible to inform the elected members of each administrative practice which is required to be undertaken to manage a multi-functional organisation of the scale of Clare County Council. Reference is also made in this motion to ongoing operational programmes and work schemes. Information on such schemes/programmes can best be dealt with at area meetings and through the area offices.”
However, Councillor Curtin expressed his disagreement with the reply, saying it misrepresents “the necessity for a fresh and open approach to the exchange of information with the elected members by the executive”.