Yesterday I was elected Chairperson of the South East Area Committee (SEAC) on Dublin City Council. The SEAC is made up of the ten Councillors from the South East Inner City and the Pembroke-Rathmines electoral areas. We come together formally every month to take decisions in relation to issues facing Dublin South East. It’s easily the most important committee that I sit on as it is where I get most of my work done, so to be elected Chair after only one year on the Council was really quite something for me.

It’s times like yesterday where the contrast with my former job in Vienna really comes home. I used to be a bureaucrat, an international civil servant, working for a secretariat that served an organization of governments. We had many meetings and conferences and I was integrally involved in each being the speechwriter for the head of the organization (as well as some of the more senior representatives).

One of my key roles was drafting speaking notes for the Chairperson or President of the session. These were scripted in such detail that the direction of the meeting and any given issue that might arise was almost predetermined before the meeting began. And whether it was my boss, the Foreign Minister or his/her Ambassador in the Chair, it went according to the notes.

These speaking notes would be drafted over a couple of weeks as pre-meetings, phonecalls and emails between relevant parties gave indication to positions and likely outcomes. If there was ever a wobble in a meeting – something unexpected, which is really quite rare in diplomatic circles – it would be adjourned and discussions would take place in an ante-room. I’d sit there drafting new speaking notes as I followed these discussions so that when plenary resumed a couple of hours later we were back on track and the meeting itself, the official part, ran like clock work.

It was really quite something. For the big ones (the 3-5 day sessions), a couple of months work might go in to them, so that once the opening session began, your job was pretty much done.

And then, in a relatively short time, I went from there to here, elected on to Dublin City Council. What struck me first was that I was meant to speak in meetings. A bizarre concept for someone like me whose primary role in a meeting was always to listen, take a few notes, be seen not heard, and assist my boss accordingly (whisper in the ear, passing of a note). And I still forget that sometimes when I’m in a meeting – that I’m expected to speak, to voice an opinion on almost everything. I’d rather not, would rather reserve my opinions for those things that I actually have opinions on, but there you go. If you’re a politician and you’re not talking I guess you’re wasting your time (or, crucially, not important). Well that’s how some people see it anyway.

But what struck me yesterday though, as I assumed my first chairing duties, was the other aspect of my so-called meeting room life that had changed. If international meetings are predetermined, then Council meetings are very much free will. This is not to criticize the people who run them or what they are as meetings but just to realize their nature. It’s a very different world from the boardrooms of the Vienna International Centre, where a poorly chosen word stated in official plenary could have quite serious consequences. I suppose that’s because of both the remove of diplomacy, where the Ambassador is just that, but also because his/her words are those of a nation and therefore can never be taken lightly.

As Councillors we are agents for ourselves primarily, though representing a Party (most of us), and that freedom to act and speak and to make decisions expresses itself in the conduct of our meetings. We don’t have to worry about communiqués from the capital. If a mistake is made it is easily corrected. And if you by accident offend someone else in the room, no harm, a cup of tea afterwards can smooth things over. The other aspect is that decisions are not predetermined and things actually get decided in the room (incomprehensible in those big set-piece meetings). You could never script an area committee meeting, they are far too varied in detail and personality.

I tried drafting my own speaking notes over the weekend in an attempt to steer the meeting in the direction I assumed it would go. It was fun, to step back in to that role and to enjoy an irony of sorts – drafting my own speaking notes (finally). But no chance.

It didn’t quite descend in to chaos, but it certainly wasn’t easy. And while I used to, in my arrogance, view some chairpersons as puppets of the Secretariat, I do have a new found respect for anyone who must sit at the top of the table as it were and try and steer intelligent people through important work.

The script has been abandoned. But the show goes on.