Attempting to deliver better municipal engineering services in Ireland

Abstract

This paper puts forward the proposition that recent attempts at local government reforms in Ireland will fail to improve the quality of services delivered to their customers due to the static and limited approach to policy-making of the authorities, which central government has not sought to fundamentally alter in favour of a more radical, customer-oriented approach. The proposed changes to the Irish local government system are compared with recent developments in the United Kingdom, where political upheaval over 20 years ago forced authorities to adopt a more customer-oriented approach based on private sector values.