Comment: A five-hour meeting - like, seriously?!

FIVE HOURS. That’s how long the full meeting of Limerick City and County Council lasted when it took place on Monday of last week.

Held in the Council Chamber, Dooradoyle (and online) the meeting began at 3pm and ended at 8pm.

The Limerick Leader/Limerick Live had reporter Nick Rabbitts present - the same reporter queued for 13 hours last month to see the Queen lying in state. One would have thought his endurance was tested enough on that occasion but our local councillors had other plans.

On a serious note, five hours for a meeting in most people’s eyes is absurd. Yes, there is a lot - too much - on the agenda to get through, and yes these are important matters which deserve time and attention.

But surely any normal functioning human being’s attention span has withered away after 90 minutes.

The most basic of behavioural research shows that engagement in meetings starts to drop off quite rapidly after about 30 minutes.

Attention levels drop quickly the longer the meeting lasts. It’s been around seven years since this writer covered a council meeting and back then it was, even on a good day, frustrating to watch what was an arena for long, drawn-out unfocused conversation with unnecessary repetition of the same points.

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Yes, the chair must ensure that all councillors with a desire to speak are given a fair opportunity, but when it’s the same ding-dong from a different throat, there is nothing to be gained for anyone, only self-glorification for the speaker.

To their credit, some chairs and councillors are, and have been, efficient but more often than not, what you get is a talk shop with decisions being made in double the time they should be.

In a world where time is the new currency, it’s about time our councillors watched the clock, established more discipline and placed more value on time - our most valuable commodity.