Sir, - At the Stormont talks a number of views were expressed as to the kind of political institutions needed in an eventual settlement. Mr David Andrews, Minister for Foreign Affairs, said on television: "North-South institutions will form a crucial element". The SDLP mentioned bodies "characterised by a range of capacities and executive possibilities". Mr Taylor, UUP, said cross-border bodies with executive powers were "totally unacceptable".
A natural and radical solution would be the setting up of a number of largely autonomous regional governments (say six to eight) in the country as a whole which would provide for parity of esteem, respect for traditions and would be founded on pure participative democracy rather than the spectator democracy which obtains in both administrative parts of the island. These structures would be based on statutory local community councils and would organically grow through district bodies to a number of regional governments, ending up in a federal parliament for the 32 counties.
The notion is perhaps better expressed by Jacques Maritain, the eminent French philosopher in his book Man and the State. "Since in political society authority comes from below through the people, it is normal that the whole dynamism of authority in the body politic should be made up of particular and partial authorities, rising in tiers, one above the other, to the supreme authority of the state". This outlook on local democracy was confirmed recently by EU President, Mr Santer, when speaking in Belfast, and also by Commissioner WulfMathies who said "the decisionmaking should be kept as close as possible to the people."
Major obstacles in the way of such structures are political parties, the party-political system and centralised control as they now operate. Many politicians would see such suggested change as a threat to their own base. While privately recognising that the present system is both inefficient and inadequate they are, nevertheless, prepared to prop it up as a kind of exclusive club, rather than strive for new and up-to-date methods that could satisfactorily and efficiently handle the country's affairs.
Now is the time to think in a visionary way about the future. - Yours, etc., Bernard J. McColgan,
Dublin 11.