I beg to move: "That this Bill be now read a Second Time." The main matters with which this Bill proposes to deal refer to the local government of the city of Dublin and to the proposed coastal borough and the occurrence of certain changes of a minor but not unimportant character as a kind of background. It would be well that we should see these changes first and bear in mind certain dates. First, there is the date of election, the date on which the new city council, the coastal borough council and new county council will be elected. The next date to keep in mind is the appointed day, which will be fourteen days from that date. Then we come to the 1st April, 1931, or, perhaps, the 1st April, 1932. There are between the land boundaries of Dublin and the sea twenty-five bodies which deal in some way with local government matters. Certain clearances will take place in this respect. In the first place the provisions of the Local Government (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1923, which superseded boards of guardians by boards of public assistance, and the further Act of 1925 which transferred the duties of rural district councils to county councils were held up in their application to the county and city of Dublin pending the settlement of matters relating to the local government of the city and county following the Report of the Commission on the government of the city and county of Dublin. It is proposed to apply those Acts now to the county, and the Boards of Guardians, namely, Balrothery, Rathdown, and the Dublin Union, will go out of office from fourteen days after the date of election. For the present their places will be taken, so far as Balrothery is concerned, by a group set up by the county council to deal with the duties of the board of guardians in the present area. A similar group will be set up by the new county council for Rathdown, and another group shall be jointly set up by the county council and the new city council in connection with the Dublin Union.
Similarly, rural councils disappear as from fourteen days after the date of election and their duties will be transferred to the county council or the board of health as the case may be which will be set up by the county council. It is proposed to dissolve the Urban Councils of Rathmines, Pembroke, Blackrock, Dun Laoghaire, Dalkey and Killiney. Arising out of that there will be further dissolutions, namely: the Joint Hospital Board of Rathmines and Pembroke; the Joint Drainage Board of Rathmines and Pembroke, and the Joint Drainage Board of Dun Laoghaire and Blackrock. That will clear seventeen bodies in all. There will be left in the county the new county council to be elected, the board of health which will be set up by the county council, the Town Commissioners of Balbriggan in connection with the elections for which there has been no change and the Urban District Council of Howth at present run by a commissioner and to be run by a commissioner to a date not later than June, 1931. There shall be a coastal borough in connection with which there will be the Dean's Grange Cemetery Board, the Port Sanitary Authority concerned with Howth, Dun Laoghaire and the city as regards the prevention of sea-borne disease. There will be the Port and Docks Board, the new County Borough of Dublin and the Grangegorman Mental Hospital Board. In all, there will be ten bodies left and if you add the three temporary bodies dealing with the duties of board of guardians in the county it will bring the number to thirteen.
That is the background in regard to which changes in connection with the city of Dublin and the new coastal borough will take place. It is proposed to extend the area of the city of Dublin and to take in the present Urban District Councils of Rathmines and Pembroke and certain rural areas specified in the Schedule. It is proposed to set up a council of twenty-five and a City Manager to run the affairs of the city. It is proposed to pool the debts and assets of the various bodies which will form the new city, and to have an equalised municipal rate with the stabilisation of certain rates in connection with Rathmines and Pembroke and the rural areas brought in in order to avoid any immediate increase in rates as the result of those areas being brought into the city. The settlement of the present rates exemption, the rates that will be paid by bodies holding exemptions from municipal rates, will be on a certain percentage of valuation, so that the moneys paid in future will be comparable with the moneys paid in the past. It is proposed to extend to the workmen in Rathmines and Pembroke the pension arrangements which at present apply to the workmen employed in the city of Dublin. In connection with the coastal borough it is proposed to form such borough from the townships of Blackrock, Dun Laoghaire, Dalkey and Killiney without taking in rural areas and it is proposed to apply the same arrangement to that as applies in the case of the City Manager, the equalisation of municipal rates, certain exemptions in regard to land and the extension of the pension scheme to the workers in the coastal borough which exists in the city.
In connection with these proposals we have to look back somewhat especially in regard to Rathmines and Pembroke, and then consider the present proposals in the light of proposals made by the Commission set up to examine the position in the City and County of Dublin. I understand that it will be argued here, as it has been argued before the Commission referred to, that Rathmines and Pembroke should not be included in the city. In respect to that, we have to look back. Prior to 1840, the area comprised in Pembroke formed portion of the Borough of Dublin, but on the revision of the boundaries of the Borough effected by the Municipal Corporations (Ireland) Act, 1840, that area was excluded from the Borough and remained without any form of municipal government until 1863, when the area was formed into a township. The area of Rathmines and Rathgar appears never to have formed part of the Borough of Dublin and to have had no form of municipal government until 1847, when the area then known as Rathmines was constituted a township with an area of 930 acres. The township was subsequently extended in 1862 by the addition of Harold's Cross; in 1866, by the addition of Sallymount and Rathgar; and in 1880 by the addition of Milltown. From 1840 to 1847 Rathmines, and from 1840 to 1863, Pembroke, were under the jurisdiction of the Grand Jury of the County of Dublin. In 1876 a Select Committee of the House of Commons was appointed to inquire into the state of the municipal government of towns and cities in Ireland, and after inquiry and the consideration of a report presented to them by W.P.O'Brien, an Inspector of the Local Government Board for Ireland, that Committee reported that a general inquiry into the subject of municipal areas should be undertaken and that a Commission should be appointed for that purpose. Accordingly, by warrant dated 31st October, 1878, the Lord Lieutenant appointed W.A. Exham, K.C.; W.P. O'Brien, an inspector of the Local Government Board for Ireland, and C.P. Cotton, C.E., as a Commission to inquire into the question of the extension of municipal boundaries. This Commission is known as the Boundaries Commission of 1878, and is sometimes referred to as the Exham Commission.
Until this Commission was appointed no question of amalgamating Rathmines and Rathgar and Pembroke with the Borough of Dublin had arisen, but on its appointment the Corporation of Dublin petitioned the Commission to recommend the extension of the boundaries of the Borought to include the townships of Rathmines and Rathgar, Pembroke, Kilmainham, Drumcondra, Clonliffe and Glasnevin, and certain parts of the county of Dublin. A petition was also presented from certain ratepayers in Clontarf praying for the inclusion of the township in the Borough. The Corporation did not make application for the inclusion of Clontarf, because they had considered that the township was separated from the Borough by a belt of agricultural land. The Commission duly heard the case presented by the Corporation and reported that the boundaries of the Borough of Dublin should be extended to include the townships of Rathmines, Pembroke, Kilmainham, Drumcondra and Clontarf, and also certain portions of the county, mainly lying to the south of Rathmines and Pembroke. No action was taken by the Legislature of the day on the report, and none of its recommendations were in consequence ever carried out.
During the period from 1881 to 1898 the question of the extension of the boundaries of the Borough of Dublin became acute, and in 1898 the Corporation promoted a Bill for the inclusion within the boundaries of the Borough of the areas recommended by the Boundaries Commission. The Bill, with certain slight amendments, was passed by the House of Commons by a large majority, but on going to the House of Lords was amended by the exclusion of Rathmines and Rathgar and Pembroke. On the Bill being sent back to the House of Commons with the Lords' amendments, the House of Commons refused to accept their amendments, the consequence being that the Bill was lost in 1899 through the expiration of the then session of Parliament. The Corporation, however, encouraged by their success in the House of Commons, reintroduced in 1900 the Bill as amended in the first instance by the House of Commons, and that Bill was-committed to a Joint Committee of both Houses, which, after a lengthy and exhaustive hearing of the evidence, rejected the claim of the Corporation for the inclusion of Rathmines and Rathgar and Pembroke. The Corporation were perforce obliged to accept the amended Bill, which became the Act of 1900, under which Drumcondra, Kilmainham, Clontarf and certain portions of the County of Dublin were brought within the Borough. The Joint Committee which considered the Bill of 1900, made a special report to both Houses of the heavy burdens falling upon the City of Dublin to which the townships of Rathmines and Rathgar and Pembroke did not adequately contribute, and suggested that legislation should be proposed to Parliament to equalise those burdens.
Following upon those recommendations, the Dublin Corporation promoted a Bill for the purpose, which became law under the title of the Dublin, Rathmines and Rathgar and Pembroke (Equalisation of Rates) Act, 1901, which provided for the equalisation of the rates over the city, Rathmines and Rathgar, and Pembroke, regarded as one area in respect of expenses incurred for the following purposes:—(1) Sanitary purposes under the Public Health Acts, excluding main drainage and water works: (2) public lighting; (3) streets, including maintenance and cleansing; (4) markets; (5) reformatory and industrial schools, and (6) lunatic asylums. The justice of the case for including in the city area Rathmines and Pembroke was so apparent that although the British Legislature actually turned down proposals to include them the Joint Committee that dealt with them pointed out that these areas were so circumstanced with regard to one another there should be equalisation of rates in respect of some of these matters. It is worth recalling the points put up by the Dublin Corporation in 1879 as the grounds on which the inclusion of Rathmines and Pembroke should take place. They argued:—(1) That the townships were separated from the city by an artificial boundary only; (2) that persons living in the townships ought to be considered and in fact were almost as much citizens of Dublin as those living in the city; (3) that the city was included in a ring fence and could not grow; (4) that the townships are a continuation of and part of Dublin; (5) that the principal portion of residents of the townships were merchants and professional persons who used the city daily for their business purposes, but resided in the townships to avoid city taxation and to obtain the purer air there which they could not obtain in the city proper; (6) that the residents of the townships thus escaped all taxation necessary to maintain the city and avoided their proper share of responsibility for the efficient management of the city in and by which they made their living; (7) that Dublin City has been built up and cannot be extended otherwise than by including the townships and portions of the county; (8) that the artisan class and labourers who have built the houses in the townships and engaged in maintaing them live almost exclusively in the city, thereby increasing its expenses; (9) that the sanitary expenses of the city were increased by the number of tenement houses in the city in which the poorer classes live, and this expense is thrown exclusively on the city and unfairly benefits those who make daily use of their labour and services; (10) that the roads and streets of the city are used by the inhabitants of the townships, with its educational and other advantages, thus increasing expense for maintenance and seavenging; (11) that building materials and daily supplies of people in the townships are drawn from and through the city; (12) that the townships do not contribute to hospitals, etc., nor to the cattle market, abbatoir, etc.; (13) that the repairing and seavenging of streets in the city and its sanitary condition is of immense importance to the inhabitants of the townships, who ought to contribute to its expenses and also to the increased charges of the city caused by the large number of poor people in the city; (14) that the townships fulfilled all the conditions upon which extension of towns has taken place in England as being suburbs or rather parts of the city and not merely suburban rural districts exclusively built on.
That was the case made by the city of Dublin more than fifty years ago; that was made in 1901, after thirteen years of equalisation of rates as between Rathmines and Pembroke and the city in certain matters, by the Act that had to be introduced by the City of Dublin Corporation. The whole proceedings, apart altogether from the cost of the inquiry dealing with the equalisation of the rates in 1901-1902, and again ten years after that —this whole inquiry and the whole prosecution of legislation in 1898 and 1901 cost the city of Dublin £50,000 without achieving the object that the city then thought should be achieved, and that the House of Commons in Great Britain, by a majority of three to one, thought should be achieved too. However, that is, as I say, looking back. What the House here has to decide, among other matters, in connection with this Bill is whether Rathmines and Pembroke are to be brought into the city. The consideration of this matter was gone into by a Commission that inquired into the government of the city and county of Dublin, and it not only came to the conclusion that Rathmines and Pembroke should come in, but that the city should be given further extensions. I recall that matter to show the historical background to that position with regard to these two townships, because I understand it will be argued that these two areas ought not to come in. Now we have to see what we are doing in relation to the proposals of the Greater Dublin Commission.
As against what we are proposing, the Greater Dublin Commission recommends that an area should be taken in to Greater Dublin that would extend from Malahide to Killiney; and that a great council should be set up over that area, and that inside that council representatives on that council from the coastal borough—that is, from the four urban districts of Blackrock, Dun Laoghaire, Dalkey, and Killiney— should act as a council in dealing with certain matters of local interest which they describe in Schedule 3; and that in respect of the Pembroke area that representatives from Pembroke should act as an advisory council in regard to those local matters in Pembroke, and that representatives from Rathmines should act as an advisory body with regard to local matters dealing with Rathmines. But the rest of the council should deal with matters outside these areas—that is, matters dealing with the present city proper and the rural area that extends to Howth and Malahide.
In approaching the proposals of the Greater Dublin Commission, I, as it were, took it that a case had been made for the green line, the boundary mark on the map of the Greater Dublin Commission's Report. I began the consideration of the matter from the point of view of the county. I found that the acceptance of the Commission's proposal would leave us with a county with 29 per cent. of its present rural population and 28 per cent. of the valuation of the present rural area, and that it would place upon the County Council the problem of dealing with local government for that percentage of their present rural population, with 28 per cent. of their present rural valuation as their financial foundation, and that they would have to carry out the administration of local government over 85 per cent. of their present rural areas. It appeared quite clear that what we would have surrounding our metropolitan area would be a new Leitrim with twice as many people only per acre as there are in Leitrim, with twice the valuation per person that Leitrim has, and with an area more effectively divided off in the middle by the City of Dublin than Leitrim is by Lough Allen. I convinced myself that the conduct of the local government of the County of Dublin would be impossible under such conditions. But still accepting that I would find that a case was made for the satisfactory carrying out of local government by accepting the green line, I considered that perhaps the remaining portion of the County of Dublin should be divided; that North County Dublin should be thrown into Meath, and that South County Dublin should be thrown into Wicklow, and that instead of three county councils we would have two county councils to carry on the work. It was clear on the financial side that the rates in North County Dublin could be comparatively considerably reduced, and that the rates in Meath would rise to a small extent. In so far as it was possible to carry out an examination on purely theoretical grounds, the rates in North County Dublin would be reduced by 2s. 6d., and the rates in Meath raised by 1s. That is accepting that there were no economies effected in the doing away with the extra county council. As far as South Dublin was concerned, the rates there might be reduced by 1s., and the rates in Wicklow increased by 1s. But when I came to consider an administrative change of that kind, and even a social change of that kind, and the political effects of a change of that kind, then I was driven back to consider what were the interests of the citizens of Dublin, or the citizens of any townships, that would warrant making changes of that particular kind.
After very, very careful consideration of the matter we were driven to the conclusion that the proposals set out by the Greater Dublin Commission for dealing with the local government of the city and urban districts and rural districts which they proposed to take in were not satisfactory and that in practice when it came to be worked out they did not provide as effectively for the proper carrying on of the business of the people as a different method might. Just as it is very much in our own minds, it was uppermost in the minds of the members of the Greater Dublin Commission that Dublin was extending and would extend. But due to the fact that Dublin is extending there is a certain burden thrown down on the city. There is a burden thrown down for supporting the loans for the further extension of water, drainage and housing, and it is essential that while bearing these burdens that these burdens would not be made unnecessarily great by stretching them out too much. Where objection can be found to the setting up of the greater council and the taking in from Malahide to Killiney is on the grounds, in the first case, that the local government problem presented there is not a homogeneous one. The council dealing with that area could never get their minds clear that they were dealing with an urban problem, because too much of that rural area would be brought in. Arising out of the want of homogencity of the problem presented to them, the representation proposed was wrong. The representation proposed in the Commission's Report would give 108,000 local government voters in the old City of Dublin, 35 representatives, while giving half of that number or 54,000 local government voters in the rest of that area 30 representatives. The representation system then arising out of want of homogeneity of the problem is wrong. I do not believe the council control could be worked. You were to have a great council dealing with all different matters set out in Schedule 2 of the Report, 34 items. The items set out in Schedule 3, that is, cleansing of roads, street surfacing public lighting, provision of standards and lamps, abattoirs, markets, domestic seavenging, public sanitary conveniences, public baths, wash-houses, and local amenities such as parks, pleasure grounds, piers and promenades, were to be the peculiar responsibility of the local councils. You would have certain matters discussed locally in the coastal borough, and certain matters discussed locally in Pembroke and Rathmines but no local discussion for Howth, Malahide and Raheny beyond general matters dealt with in the council.
Deputies may have seen recently where a meeting of citizens was held in Dun Laoghaire with regard to the wants of Dun Laoghaire, and they may have seen that a fortnight or so before a meeting asking for the formation of a north coastal borough was held by persons interested in the Howth, Malahide, Baldoyle and Sutton side. The discussion that took place at these meetings, and the very calling of these meetings, shows another great objection to the Greater Dublin Commission proposals. The bringing of these areas into the city on the grounds that they were growing and developing, and that they ought to be provided with services of a particular kind, raised extravagant hopes in the minds of the people of these not yet urbanised areas that they are going to be provided with very great services. For instance, the Baldoyle, Sutton and Howth people want a main drainage scheme analogous to that of Blackrock and Dun Laoghaire, and the Government is supposed to pay for it. They want a big road scheme from Malahide to the city, and the Government is supposed to pay for it. In the same way slum clearing and houses are wanted in Dun Laoghaire. Coastal area roads are wanted; improvements on the sea front and general improvements in the amenities of the seaside resorts are considered necessary, all involving a big amount of money which is to come from somewhere else than the areas in question. If these areas are brought into the city there is no reason why there should be Government assistance to provide drainage for Howth, Sutton and Baldoyle similar to that which the Blackrock and Dun Laoghaire people have had to pay for in their own areas. Similarly, the Pembroke and Rathmines people have had to pay for theirs, and the Dublin people have had to pay for their own.
What we want to provide in the proper development of the Dublin area is the widest flung area that can be satisfactorily administered, and that will contain a homogeneous circumference. With that in our minds we have considered that the most satisfactory area for the Dublin county borough is the city, Rathmines, Pembroke and certain rural areas that we have fully examined and marked out. A number of the rural areas that it has been often suggested should come into the city on the grounds that they were urbanised, or were being rapidly urbanised, were found in fact to have been diminishing in population between 1911 and 1926. The areas that we have proposed to come into the city are areas where definite urbanisation has taken place. In so far as is possible we have not divided townlands, but in three cases as far as the city is concerned we have divided townlands for the reason that the townlands were large and if the whole of them were taken in we would have taken in rural areas that did not appear to be required for development for some years to come.
Turning then to the coastal borough there is the fact that if the four urban districts along the coast were taken from the county council, the county council administration would be made exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, and the burden that would be thrown on the people would be very much increased. Apart altogether from that fact, we have had to come to the conclusion that the coastal borough is a separate place from the city in the whole outlook at the present moment. Their heart is the seafront and their whole life has grown up around the seafront. In so far as services are required for them, the services that would warrant joining in, taking their present position, would be that they would require water from the city or drainage from the city or that they would require roads. As far as water is concerned they have it at present and they are paying a satisfactory price to the city for it. As far as drainage is concerned, Blackrock and Dun Laoghaire have their own drainage, and under no circumstances can that drainage be linked up with the city drainage; it is a separate system in itself. Dalkey would require some additional drainage service and Killiney has not a drainage service at the moment. The drainage services there will have to be improved. But Dublin City cannot help Killiney or Dalkey by taking their drainage into the Dublin drainage system.
No case can be made in the matter of roads for requiring the linking up of the two areas because the machinery for dealing with the city as a compact area—the road making machinery—will be organised for that area economically. Additional road making control would be wanted in the coastal borough and the advantage, if any—and it is doubtful if there would be any advantage—of joining up the coastal borough to the city for the purpose of having joint control of roads would not be such as to outweigh the disadvantage that would otherwise arise, the disadvantage being that at the present moment the problem that the new Council of the City of Dublin will have before them in settling down for their new administration will be to direct all their attention on the city and the city's peculiar problems, which are different from the problems of the new coastal borough. The residents in the coastal borough could hardly expect to get that close attention from the city at present that they would get from their own council. The representation of the coastal borough, if brought into the city, as I have shown, could not be satisfactory either, and the general affairs of the coastal borough in its present state of development and the present state of development of the city can best be left in our opinion to itself.
The question arises from the Dublin point of view for what purpose does Dublin City want the coastal borough attached to it? What advantage can it be to it? I know of no advantage that it can be to the citizens of Dublin to bring in the coastal borough and to make the Dublin Council responsible for the administration of its affairs. I should like to see it shown that it would reduce the rates in Dublin by a halfpenny in the £. What Dublin really wants in any reorganisation is the proper settlement of efficient management there, and that it will have fairly satisfactory powers of extension. The city is prevented from extending over to the sea by an angle of about 69 degrees. It is prevented from extending down against Blackrock by an angle of about fourteen or fifteen degrees, and of the 360 degrees in four right angles, it has about 280 degrees in which it can extend. As far as the extension of the city is concerned, the last place that the city would decide to extend itself is down to or at the back of Blackrock and Dun Laoghaire. If extension is going to take place there, it can most satisfactorily be controlled from the Dun Laoghaire side at the present moment. When further extension does take place, then the question of whether the joint interest will be served by amalgamating the two areas can be considered. Bearing in mind that the urbanisation is going on round the forceps of Dublin Bay, we have introduced a provision into the Bill by which if either the council of Howth or the council of the city, or the council of the coastal borough consider an extension is wanted, they can make application for such extension as they want. An inquiry can be held by the Local Government Department, and such extension as a case is made for can be made the subject of a provisional order which can be passed through this Oireachtas. So that there will be a systematic and easy way of extending the area that will be controlled by the urban authorities around the Bay, and the process of urbanisation going on gradually there can go on under the public eye with a thorough sensing by the councils responsible for the administration of the area, and by the people as regards the joining up of further urban areas.
As regards not taking rural areas into the coastal borough, a private measure was introduced in 1924 by the Urban Councils of Blackrock Dun Laoghaire and Dalkey for joining these three areas into a borough. No proposals were made in that measure for the extension of the boundaries of the borough. No provisions, so far as I recollect, were inserted in the measure giving power in a simple way for extension. If there was an urgent pressure on the local bodies for extension, they would, I submit, have made some kind of provision in their Bill for it. If Deputies will look at the map prepared by the Greater Dublin Commission and look at the road stretching from Temple Hill up to Cabinteely and Loughlinstown and see what urbanisation is going on there, I think they will be convinced that there was no case for bringing that area into the borough. Of the forty-three townlands which it was proposed should be included within the boundary line of the coastal borough, twenty-six have a population of less than one per acre, and fourteen of these have actually decreased in population since 1911. I submit that the House may leave it to the local authority, planning for their own area and looking at their problem, to say whether further extension of their boundary is necessary in order properly to look after the interests of the citizens of these districts.
Part of Deputy O'Connell's amendment takes exception to there not being provided in the Bill a local authority of any kind for dealing with matters common to the metropolitan area as a whole. I am sure the Deputy will give us an idea as to what he means. I submit that the new city, the new borough, and Howth, with simple powers of extension, give you all the chances for growth that are desirable. The next thing that is required, if you want something else besides the Department for Local Government to control that growth by inquiry, is what would be called a town-planning or regional planning board. I do not know if that is what the Deputy has in mind. If that is so, I should like to know what town-planning is for. Exception has been taken in other places to the fact that there is no provision for town-planning in this measure. When we deal with legislation for town-planning we want to be quite clear in our minds what the object of it is. The object, I suppose, that Deputy O'Connell and others have in mind is that proper steps should be taken that there would be a reasonable and co-ordinated development of roads, drainage services, and all that, in the areas outside. What we want for that is a clear conception of a regional plan. We want legislation for that, and I submit that no body ought to be established to look after regional planning in a frame of mind of wanting over-organisation for greatness sake.
For some months, I have had the Department examining the problem of town planning so that it can be dealt with, but certain problems have to be solved before it can be effectively dealt with. There is no use in introducing legislation that will not thoroughly realise these problems and that will not deal with them, not only in a theoretical way, but in a practical way. As I say, the situation has been thoroughly examined, but I think regional planning outside the city and into the county should be for the purpose of serving the interests of a growing city and the city council comes into that. As it is regional planning extending into the county, it brings in the county council. If any body is going to act as an advisory body for regional planning in the County Dublin, in my present frame of mind, with the problem not fully examined, and not having come to the stage at which we can put legislation before the House, I see no other body but one such as this: The Lord Mayor of Dublin and one or two of the city councillors; the chairman of the county council and perhaps one member of the council; the mayor of the coastal borough and, say, one member of the coastal borough, and the chairman of the Urban District Council of Howth. Such matters as require to be dealt with or to be examined for the purpose of seeing what regional development is and the preparation of plans would require a body like that. If Deputies are looking for the establishment of a local authority of a kind for dealing with matters common to the metropolitan area as a whole, if they want any other body, I should like to know what body they want, and what things they have in mind as common to the area as a whole. So much with regard to we submit to the House as the most satisfactory areas that can be set out.
Next we come to the proposal that there be associated with the councils governing these areas a manager—a manager for the City of Dublin and a manager for the coastal borough. A considerable amount of talk has been indulged in to the effect that in providing for the appointment of a City Manager our Bill is subversive of representative government. Deputy O'Connell, in his amendment, objects to the Bill on the ground that it deprives the citizens of effective control over the administration of their municipal affairs. The history of local government is the history of the devolution of the powers of the central government to locally-established authorities arising out of the necessity of meeting local or national needs as they arose. In the first instance, they were confined to certain aspects of the poor law. Gradually they grew, and they grew from time to time in a haphazard way and, in consequence, the local government organisation has grown up in a haphazard and piecemeal way and not in pursuance of any organic conception of the function, broad and comprehensive in its scope, under which the orderly and progressive expansion of local government services and machinery could be co-ordinated and secured. That devolution of power has proceeded at a great pace during the last thirty years and has resulted in a system under which an ever-increasing complex mass of administrative and deliberative functions has been devolved upon local authorities without sufficient consideration being paid either to the question of their capacity or the ability of the machine to deal adequately with those functions. In view of the importance of the proper exercise of local government functions to the welfare of the community and of the financial effects of bad and uneconomic management, it has become of paramount importance to secure the utmost efficiency in execution by local authorities of their powers and duties. Local government is dynamic —it cannot stand still. It is continually adapting itself or being adapted by the legislature to new functions imposed upon it. A tribute must be paid to the efforts of those public-spirited members of local authorities who, caught up in a complexity of system which it would require years of study adequately to understand, have grappled with the problems of local government and endeavoured, with very considerable success and with limited means at their disposal, to secure the efficient local government of their areas. A point, however, appears to have been reached at which, in the interests of better local government, a separation of the deliberative and administrative functions of local authorities is desirable, particularly in reference to the larger municipalities, where the complexity of function is most apparent, and large financial matters are concerned. It is conceived that such a separation would be entirely in accord with modern democratic theory and practice. Such a separation should ideally take place on the lines that the purely administrative and executive functions of local government should, in an important local government area such as a large municipal borough, be entrusted to an expert officer capable of co-ordinating and controlling the management of the local government business of the authority. That officer must necessarily be invested with all the necessary powers for that purpose and be responsible to the local authority for the satisfactory discharge of his duties.
It is the aim of this Bill, as it was the aim of the Cork Bill, to devise such a system of separation of powers for the City of Dublin, the capital city of the country. Modern theory and practice both concur in the view that the expert administrator is a necessary institution in local government required for the dispassionate consideration and solution of local government problems. Admittedly the problem is to secure the proper demarcation of functions between the expert administrator and the local government body. Such demarcation should apparently follow the lines which separate the deliberative functions of the local authority from their purely administrative functions. We have in this country progressed very far in the matter of improving our machinery for local government. We have progressed that far because, I think, there has been a general appreciation not only in the different parties in the country, but throughout the people of the country as a whole, of the lines upon which the main local government machinery should be formed.
