{"id":578383,"date":"2026-08-01T05:46:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T05:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/578383\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T05:46:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T05:46:08","slug":"dysfunction-in-ireland-a-poor-reason-to-not-back-andy-burnhams-plan-to-devolve-power-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/578383\/","title":{"rendered":"Dysfunction in Ireland a poor reason to not back Andy Burnham\u2019s plan to devolve power \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Sir, \u2013 It was rather odd of John FitzGerald to cite <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/northern-ireland\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/northern-ireland\/\">Northern Ireland<\/a> and the Republic of Ireland as examples to argue against <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/andy-burnham\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/andy-burnham\/\">Andy Burnham<\/a>\u2019s plan for regional devolution in England (\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/business\/economy\/2026\/07\/27\/little-evidence-that-andy-burnhams-plan-to-devolve-power-to-the-regions-will-work\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/business\/economy\/2026\/07\/27\/little-evidence-that-andy-burnhams-plan-to-devolve-power-to-the-regions-will-work\/\">Burnham\u2019s plan to devolve power to UK regions is unlikely to work<\/a>\u201d, July 27th). It would be hard to find two jurisdictions among the world\u2019s advanced economies with more dysfunctional governance systems than these.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">FitzGerald could have pointed to continental Europe, where there are many cases of very effective devolved governance systems. In Sweden, for example, almost all public services are delivered at municipal (mostly) and regional levels.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The key to successful devolution is to transfer both functions and the raising of finance to fund these functions to regional and local levels. This imposes budgetary responsibility while also making it clearer to citizens how their tax money is being spent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">In Sweden, almost all income tax is raised at the local level and goes straight to municipalities to fund the wide range of public services which they provide (with provision of some transfers from wealthier to poorer municipalities to ensure minimum standards of service provision). \u2013 Yours, etc,<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">PROINNSIAS BREATHNACH,<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Department of geography,<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/maynooth-university\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/maynooth-university\/\">Maynooth University<\/a>,<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Co Kildare.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sir, \u2013 It was rather odd of John FitzGerald to cite Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17772,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85530,61,60,76685,43,2443],"class_list":["post-578383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-andy-burnham","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-maynooth-university","tag-news","tag-northern-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=578383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=578383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=578383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=578383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}