Within the next few months, Noel Dempsey will bring legislation before the Dail to postpone local government elections for a further year. The result will allow county councillors who were elected in 1991 to serve an eight-year term in office.

This is not good for democracy at either local or national level. The power of the government of the day to arbitrarily postpone local elections has been increasingly abused in recent years. And the excuses for doing so have become progressively threadbare.

The latest justification by Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats has to do with elections to the European Parliament. The Minister for the Environment and Local Government has canvassed opposition members on the basis that local elections should be held in tandem with the European contests, in 1999, in order to ensure a high voter turnout.

Behind that approach lies an acceptance that local council elections are more relevant to the public than European elections. But nothing is done to address the democratic deficit inherent in the European Parliament. And local democracy is penalised and damaged because of its relative success.

The parties that made such a song and dance about reforming and empowering local authorities from 1989 to 1992 now appear hell-bent on using them as a crutch for the European Parliament.

All the evidence suggests the electorate is strongly opposed to such an approach. In 1979 the first elections to the European Parliament were held in tandem with county council elections. In protest, 4 per cent of European ballots were spoiled. There was a similar reaction in 1989 when the European and general elections coincided, with European spoiled votes amounting to 3 per cent. But the percentage of voters on both occasions exceeded 65 per cent.

Last time, in 1994, when the European elections were linked only to sub-county and Udaras na Gaeltachta elections, the turnout was 44 per cent. But spoiled votes amounted to 1 per cent.

There has been no suggestion that an increased turnout in the European elections would change in any way the personnel elected to the Parliament. A higher turnout would simply create an artificial impression that Irish voters are seriously interested in, and concerned with, the work of the European Parliament.

It is a pointless sham, designed purely for European consumption. And it would conceal, rather than address, the democratic deficit at the heart of the European experiment.

Seven years ago, in government with the Progressive Democrats, Fianna Fail agreed to a series of local authority reforms. The man in charge at the Department of the Environment at the time was Padraig Flynn. And it was agreed, in 1990, that all sub-county and county local elections should be held on the same day and in the same year.

In order to achieve this, urban and district councils and town commissioners were given a four-year mandate, while county councils and corporations received a seven-year term in office. Arising from the reform, all local authority elections were set for June 1998.

Local elections at county level are a key recruiting ground for Oireachtas members and have a direct impact on Dail results. A party that performs well in local elections invariably captures extra seats in the following general election. This phenomenon encourages sitting Oireachtas members to devote a great deal of time to parochial issues in order to protect their power base. And, while there has been some talk in recent years about extending the ban on ministers holding council seats to include TDs and senators, the nettle has not been grasped.

Instead, the Government is preparing to introduce legislation which for the first time in the history of the State will create a gap of eight years between one county council election and the next. So much for the health of local democracy.

For a party which campaigned consistently for the decentralisation of power and the creation of a vibrant local government system since its formation in 1986, the Progressive Democrats must find the situation somewhat embarrassing.

The party's blushes may be spared somewhat by Mr Dempsey's proposal to establish a new and expanded local government fund, which would be "ring-fenced, buoyant and involve more money".

In the Dail last Tuesday opposition parties were led to believe that such legislation was imminent when the Minister indicated his intention of having new arrangements in place by January. But, under questioning, it transpired that the date he had in mind was January 1999. It was a shabby approach but in keeping with the treatment local democracy and its electorate has received in recent years.

Given that this is a minority Coalition Government, a revolt by opposition and independent TDs against this latest anti-democratic farce would be no bad thing.