THE revolution, as it turns out, will not be televised. And by the revolution, of course, I mean Council meetings. Despite the best efforts of the Social Democrats.
And shur look, new directly-elected Mayor John Moran is taking no prisoners anyway, so anyone with notions of revolt would be used for target practice fairly pronto anyways.
Still, daytime television is pretty dire, and anyone losing the will to live suffering through Maura Derrane and Daithí O Sé’s auld blather on the idiot box would surely get a giggle out of our good Council’s meetings.
Yes, they can be long, drawn out, and tedious, a bit surreal at times as well — just like The Today Show — but they are often very entertaining, in a Keystone Cops kind of way.
There’s plenty of change afoot at present in the corridors of power down in City Hall, and local authority meetings now offer the tantalising promise of saucier pow-wows ahead.
Social Democrats councillor Elisa O’Donovan urged Limerick City and County Council to allow for live streaming of all council meetings deemed open to the public, but alas, the top brass were having none of it.
Cllr O’Donovan is of the view that live streaming meetings will increase transparency, accountability, and public engagement.
“History is being made in Limerick at the moment with the new role of directly-elected Mayor. We are the first council in Ireland to have a directly-elected mayor and this is a great opportunity to showcase ourselves as a modern city council,” she told the council executive at their recent monthly meeting.
O’Donovan wants to see the Council set the national gold standard for local government with complete transparency and accountability.
She pointed out that many other councils, including Dublin and Cork, have been live streaming their meetings very successfully for several years.
“There is significant work to be done engaging the public and making them feel like they are valued stakeholders in local government – full access to council meetings should be the absolute minimum we do,” she said, contesting that live streaming meetings is firmly in the public interest – which they, as councillors, are there to serve.
As luck would have it, “computer says no”.
Why? Well, one of the concerns aired by Council brass was that live streaming of meetings could lead to “grandstanding”.
At a Council meeting? Say it ain’t so!
The fact local press are present at council meetings, along with my good self dangling from the rafters, is cause enough for grandstanding.
Often at the monthly meetings it is suggested by local representatives, up way past their bed time, that if the media went home those waffling would stop their auld guff immediately.
Taking the grandstanding out of a politician is like taking the legs off a footballer. It would make more sense to ban journalists than not consider live streaming meetings. It’s absolute nonsense, and a poor excuse with it.
“There can be a tendency for speakers to exceed their allotted time to maximise exposure when meetings are live streamed, particularly with regard to contentious issues,” the Council suggested.
Local authority management also expressed concerns about hacking, editing, and manipulation of webcasts.
“Council meetings are currently managed in an open and transparent manner with the notice of meetings and agenda published online in advance of meetings … Should members resolve to live stream, this would entail a change to standing orders,” the response came.
Nothing to see here apparently – and if there were, sure you can’t stream it anyway.
