A number of West Cork councillors tell us what they believe is working in local government – and what is not.

Independent Ireland Cllr Daniel Sexton , who is in his first term, said that a lot of people enter politics ‘thinking they're going to change the world’ but to him, delivering solutions to local issues matters most to him and his constituents.

Housing was an area he felt could be improved.

‘In fairness, the council are doing what they can with the amount of money and the budget that they have, but I really think that from national government, we need to get more funding and the delivery of projects needs to be quicker,’ he said.

Fianna Fáil Cllr Deirdre Kelly believes that collaboration with the executive to secure funding is going well. 

She pointed to the council’s recent acquisition of the West End car park in Dunmanway as a success, and believes its redevelopment will transform the town.

Like Cllr Sexton, she feels that local councils don’t get enough funding from central government: ‘

‘Cork County is receiving the same funding as a lot of other counties, and it doesn't take into account geographical size etc… we're not receiving our fair share in our opinion.’

Independent Cllr Finbarr Harrington enjoys dealing with local issues first-hand: ‘The fact that we can come here to our monthly meeting meet our engineers, meet all our senior staff, and raise local issues and get those dealt with, I think that really works really, really well,’ he said.

A challenge in his eyes is the overlap with other governmental bodies such as TII (Transport Infrastructure Ireland) Uisce Éireann on certain projects.

‘Sometimes they can be quite frustrating because they delay projects that we'd like to get through maybe a little bit faster.’

Fianna Fáil Cllr George Gill is the region’s newest public representative having been co-opted to Cork County Council in January following the death of his colleague Patrick Gerard Murphy. He points to the accessibility of councillors as one of local government’s merits, 

‘We're on the ground, people can raise issues with us and we can meet with engineers and the senior staff there to discuss them…from meeting people over the weekend you could have a motion into County Council next month.’

In agreement with his colleague Cllr Kelly, he says funding from central government should be ‘streamlined.’

‘A lot of directives come down from central government that might not fit every region.’

Social Democrats Cllr Isobel Towse is also in her first term in local government, and commends Ireland and County Cork for having a democratically elected representatives, something which is under threat in a global context.

In terms of what’s not working, Cllr Towse put it simply.

‘Fundamentally we just don't have enough money,’ she said.

She commended County Development plans and ‘amazing’ community groups for the work that they do, but she feels that ‘central government needs to play a bigger part.’

Fianna Fáil Cllr Joe Carroll paid homage to the ‘outstanding’ management and engineering team of Cork County Council, especially following the plethora of rain the county has experienced since the start of the year.

‘People complain regularly to us about the state of our roads, they just can’t do any more with the funding they’re getting…we’re very proud of them.’

He has seen the tides changing in local government throughout the years and he feels disappointed that the power of the local councillor has been diminished.

‘We had a lot more power before and we had a way more say in what we do in our county, now that’s taken away from us.’