Learning about the issues

Over the next couple of days we'll be trying to find out whether all politics is local as we travel the country talking to voters, grassroots activists and councillors

However, already, from early conversations - as we've travelled from Dublin, via Carlow, to south Tipperary - local issues are taking second place to what's happening nationally.

On the doorstep there's a sense that, maybe, the local elections are a referendum on how the Government is performing.

Dr Liam Weeks, the co-author of All Politics is Local, told us this morning that national issues tend to dominate local election debates, but saying that in the areas we visited councillors were adamant that local issues are what really matter.

Independent councillor Eddie O'Meara, a former Fianna Fáiler in the 90s, who is running in the Fethard electoral area for a seat on South Tipperary County Council, said funding for local services is what voters care about.

But the problem facing councillors, throughout the country, is that funding is being cut from central Government, meaning there's less money to do things locally.

'Potholes, which people expect to have filled because they pay road tax, are not being filled', Cllr Eddie O'Meara told us. 'Cuts to small budgets like this have a direct impact on voters'.

And funding is a critical issue, says local elections expert Dr Weeks.

The difficulty is that local government lacks autonomy from central Government in Dublin – because it depends on most of its money from it.

Locally collected levies, like development levies, have dried up because of the bursting of the property bubble. This means there's less money coming for local councils' own sources. This combined with decreased Government funding means leaner times for everyone locally.

Ultimately, funding for local government dried up when Jack Lynch fulfilled his promise of cutting domestic rates in the 1977 General Election, and experts say local government hasn't recovered since.

We asked candidates whether new rates – specifically domestic rates – should be once again struck to guarantee money for local government coffers.

The Green response from both Alan Price and Deputy Mary White in Carlow was to refer to changes in local government which could come down the line with reforms that are coming down the line from the Department of the Environment. Alan Price even suggested that individual county taxes should be imposed on goods and services, just like State taxes in other countries.

But the question remains whether the imposition of additional taxes or levies on an already levy burdened electorate is palatable.

Generally, the issues of jobs – or the lack of them, floundering local economies, the state of Ireland's finances and the impact of that on people's pockets appear to be what's on the mind of the electorate.