Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 22 Jun 1939

Vol. 76 No. 12

Waterford City Management Bill, 1939—Second Stage.

Minister for Local Government and Public Health (Mr. O Ceallaigh)

I move that the Bill be now read a Second Time. The Bill proposes to extend to the City of Waterford the system of municipal government that associates a city manager with an elected council. This system is already in operation in Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Dun Laoghaire. Under the Bill, the powers and duties of the corporation will be exercised in relation to certain reserved matters by a newly constituted council and in other respects by the city manager. The new council will consist of 15 members, four of whom shall be aldermen. The former council consisted of 40 members, including ten aldermen returned by five wards. It is considered that, under the new system, a numerically smaller body will be able to carry out the council's functions with greater dispatch.

Under the Bill, the city wards will be replaced by two electoral areas. The number of members to be elected by each area will be determined so as to secure, as far as is reasonably possible, equal representation on the basis of population. An election will be held within three months after the passing of the Bill. Provision is made to bring subsequent elections into line with the triennial elections of county councillors. The council will elect a mayor whose duties will be substantially the same as heretofore.

The functions reserved to the new council will preserve for the council the control of financial policy. The council will exercise the power of striking the municipal rate and of borrowing money. There are also reserved to the council the powers in regard to making by-laws, bringing permissive Acts into force, opposing and promoting Bills and appointing representatives on public bodies. Subject to the usual safeguards, they will also have power to appoint, suspend or remove the manager. There is a provision by which the powers of the council can, if necessary, be extended by an order of the Minister.

The city manager will be appointed on the recommendation of the Local Appointments Commissioners. Pending the permanent appointment being made, the Minister can nominate a temporary manager. The person appointed manager will also be town clerk. The Tuberculosis Committee will be dissolved and its functions transferred to the corporation. It will be the duty of the manager to furnish information to the mayor, attend meetings, advise the council, plan works which the council wish to have executed and control and supervise the staff. He will act by signed orders of which a record will be kept. All the existing separate funds will be merged in a new consolidated fund, referred to in the Bill as the municipal fund. A new municipal rate will take the place of the existing borough rate, poor rate and water rate. The contract water rate will remain. In order to preserve the existing partial exemptions as nearly as possible, the municipal rate will be levied on seven-tenths of the valuation of arable land or meadow within the city and on three-fifths of the half rents rateable under the Poor Relief Acts. The Bill provides machinery by which an application may be made by the corporation for an extension of the city boundaries and the determination thereof by the Minister.

Officers and servants of the corporation will continue to hold their positions on the same tenure as at present, but they will be under the control and supervision of the manager. Employees, if they have 20 years' service, are given the benefit of the provisions of Section 53 of the Local Government Act of 1925 and this power can be exercised within a period of two years, or longer, if the Minister, on the application of the corporation, extends the period.

Section 37 of the Act contains an important provision under which the corporation may acquire lands and drain them if they are capable of being improved by drainage and such improvement would increase the amenities of the city. The lands which the section is designed to deal with are the Kilbarry marshes which lie on the south boundary of the city. The marshes, which are over 200 acres in extent, are covered with water for the greater part of the year. This waterlogged waste is a menace to the health of the city, which is extending along the higher ground about the marsh. A scheme prepared under the Arterial Drainage Acts, 1925 and 1929 was rejected by the occupiers of the marshes. The drainage work should not present any great technical difficulties, nor should the cost prove to be prohibitive. The Bill is presented in the firm belief that it will promote the better government of the city and the efficient administration of the many services the corporation are now called on to administer.

Mr. Gorey

I should like a little more detail in connection with this Bill which is of some concern to the constituency I represent. I can understand the Minister's reference to developments in the Kilbarry bogs area, which is in County Waterford, to which he referred by name, but when he speaks of extensions of the city boundaries, I think he ought to be equally as explicit and to state what is intended, at least on the Kilkenny side. He has referred to the operation of this system in other cities, but I think Waterford will be found rather different inasmuch as it is on the border of two counties. He has said that machinery will be established to deal with any proposed extensions, but I should like to know what provision will be made whereby Kilkenny interests can be represented. At present, we have no county council, its duties being in the hands of a commissioner, and there is very little chance of having views expressed by elected representatives, and none at all by local residents of the portion of the county which might be interested in any changes proposed to be made. In view of the fact that the Minister has named developments in the Kilbarry area, I should like to know what the intentions are. The Minister, I am sure, has no intentions in the matter, but some local people, or people on behalf of the local authority, must have briefed him as to their intentions with regard to developments on the Kilkenny side. I should like to know what they are, and I think it only fair to the House and to the county I represent that they should know them and that we should know what provision is to be made for the expression of views by residents of any particular portion of that county.

I am also interested in a business concern outside the borough boundary on the Kilkenny side. It was our deliberate intention to be outside the borough boundary and that was the reason the factory was set up on the particular site on which it was set up, so that there would be no control by any authority outside the people by whom the capital was subscribed. Waterford City subscribed nothing, or very little, to this particular enterprise. I think it only fair that, at this stage, the Minister should be more explicit. It is the only point of interest in the Bill to the residents of the Kilkenny side of the river. The drainage of Kilbarry is, in my opinion, very desirable in every way, both from the point of view of public health and of territory for possible building development which that bog would give, if reclaimed. Everybody with an open mind will agree that that swamp is, and always has been, an eyesore. My only concern is that the Minister will give us an outline of what is intended and who it is that has inspired this particular clause that embraces the County Kilkenny and the corporation activities on the Kilkenny side of the river. Perhaps Deputy Little could give us some indication of that.

Mr. Pattison

He will not be allowed.

Mr. Norton

This Bill raises a very important principle in respect of the powers of the city manager. It would appear from the terms of this and previous Bills which have been introduced that the Government have now become wedded to the idea of the city manager. When we come to look at schemes of organisation which empower the city manager to exercise virtually all the executive powers of an elected body in a municipal borough, we find two notable examples, in the case of Dublin City and Cork City. It is a mistake to imagine that the City Council of Dublin exercises any effective control over the municipal government of the city. The main powers in respect of municipal government in Dublin are vested in the hands of the city manager. The ordinary members of the council have very little power to shape the municipal policy of the city. It is true they may be asked to vote money and it is true they may refuse to vote money. But if one recognises that the municipal services are to be carried on, then the municipal council has to vote the money. Having done that, the power of the municipal council to direct the municipal policy is negligible indeed.

I notice there is a complete absence of members of the Government Party who represent the City of Dublin to-day. These Deputies who are members of the Government Party in the Dublin Corporation have been most vehement in their denunciation of the dictatorial powers conferred upon the city manager. The members of the Government Party in the Cork Corporation have been most vehement in denouncing the dictatorial powers conferred on the Cork City Manager. But there are none of these here to-day to express their views on this Bill. None of the Dublin or Cork Deputies on the Government side are here during this debate. But this Bill is a continuation of the same policy as is enshrined in the City of Dublin and the City of Cork Management Acts. In this instance it has been acknowledged by all Parties, except perhaps, the Fine Gael Party, that the government of Cork City is in the hands of the city manager. The same applies to the Dublin City Manager. He can decide and direct the policy of the council in any manner that he desires. It is true, of course, that the city manager may meet the council. The council may make recommendations to him and he will consider the recommendations. The municipal council in Dublin may pass any resolution it likes; the City Council of Cork may pass any resolution it likes, but neither the City Manager in Dublin nor in Cork is bound to take the slightest notice of any resolution passed by the council unless the resolutions agree with the outlook of the city manager and with the point of view of the city manager in respect of representative government.

The whole position reminds me of a story which is told of Disraeli. He was presented on one occasion with a book and he said he would lose no time in reading it. He did not. The City Managers in Cork, Dublin, and in Waterford, if this Bill is passed, can say they will lose no time considering any resolution passed by their councils; the proposal of the council will get as much consideration from the city managers as Disraeli gave to the book presented to him. I think that is making a mock and a farce of municipal government because in the case of the administration in Dublin and Cork, and the administration that will be in operation in Waterford when this Bill passes, the local representatives have no power to guide the municipal policy of the areas concerned.

I will agree at once that it ought not be necessary to bring before the council every small matter of routine administration and ask the local representatives to adjudicate upon what should be done in such circumstances. There are a lot of routine functions which could be carried out by any man acting as town clerk or secretary of a committee. But when you give the manager far-reaching powers such as he has in Dublin and Cork then you make local representative government ludicrous because, while pretending to retain a semblance of representative government in respect of municipal matters you, in fact, give all vital powers to the manager and local government is merely a rubber stamp for the manager and only a pretext for saying that local government exists in both Dublin and Cork.

I make no complaints against the managers. They may be very acceptable citizens, very agreeable people, but the machinery put into their hands makes them virtual bosses of the areas they operate and I protest against that as something that is in direct opposition to municipal government. This Bill, like the Cork City Management Act and the Dublin Act, is undemocratic. It will be found later on to be most undemocratic in operation. What the machinery of the Bill may be is one matter, but this is not the way to approach the question of municipal government. It should not be approached in this dictatorial way. I think it is a mistake to give one person the wide powers which the manager is getting in this Bill. It is undemocratic to give those powers and it is making a farce of representative government. Whatever, therefore, the merits of the Bill may be in respect of routine matters, we on these benches are opposed to it on principle because it is destroying local representative government. It is putting into the hands of the city manager powers which should clearly be reserved to the local municipal council, reserved to people who are more in touch with the desires of the citizens than the manager could possibly be.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I cannot give Deputy Gorey much information in reply to the question asked about the intentions of extending the boundaries in Waterford. I have no intentions and the Department of Local Government and Public Health have no intentions whatever in the matter of the boundaries. In several places in municipal and other areas in recent years power was sought to extend the boundaries. It was found it was a very difficult and slow process which required the introduction of a Bill. It was a difficult, slow and costly process. As a result in all these Bills dealing with the reorganisation of local government in a number of cities and towns, Dublin, Cork, Dun Laoghaire and Limerick, a clause was introduced enabling the local authority to apply to have their boundaries extended. This Bill is a shortening of the process and a lessening of the expenses and costs in each case. It would be open to them, after a local inquiry and with the consent and approval of the Minister, to have the boundaries extended if it were thought necessary to extend them. This Bill is adopting the same principles in the case of Waterford where there has been for many years, as the Deputy and other Deputies are aware, a demand that power should be got to extend the boundaries of that city. In this case at any rate it would mean that the question of the Kilbarry marshes could be dealt with. It was for the purpose of enabling the corporation, if they thought fit to extend the boundaries of the city, to include the Kilbarry marshes. It was because of that question, specifically, that the section was put in there. I am not aware of any intention to extend the boundaries on any side of the city, but I know there were discussions very many times in the municipal council of Waterford in days gone by, 60, 70 and 100 years ago, about the drainage of the marshes by the municipality.

Mr. Gorey

I am not questioning that at all.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I have no intention in my mind with regard to the boundaries, but this section is to facilitate the local authority with regard to the boundary. I am sure if Deputy Norton and I were discussing this for years we would not agree on the principles enunciated in this Bill. Anyway, we would not agree if we were discussing it in the House. If I had Deputy Norton inside his room or if he were inside my room I am sure I would get him to agree.

Mr. Norton

If we had the Minister on the Opposition Benches he would agree with us.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

But that is talking of the impossible.

Mr. Norton

I am talking of things that are possible.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Deputy Norton mentioned vital power. Vital power is the power of the purse and as long as the municipal council has control over the money it has control over the fundamental principles of local government. It has not control over the ordinary administration, but it can lay down the principles and direct how money is to be spent under the various headings. The corporation provides every year a scheme of estimates showing the general principles on which money is to be spent. It does not control expenditure in detail but it fixes the amount to be expended, the principles on which it is to be expended and the rates to be raised.

Mr. Hickey

It would be very important to have control over the spending of it, too.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

In practice, they have that control. I do not think that representatives of either the Dublin or Cork Council would say that any representations made by them to the manager would be ignored.

Mr. Hickey

For the information of the Minister, I should like to say that decisions of Cork Corporation, unanimously arrived at, were not carried out by the manager.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I am sorry to hear that anybody could regard decisions unanimously arrived at by the corporation as impracticable. There must have been some element of impracticability in the decisions.

Mr. Hickey

That can always be said.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

This measure is not, as Deputy Norton said, "most undemocratic." It preserves the democratic principle of control in local government.

Mr. Keyes

On one day in the year. You can strike the rate and that is all.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

The councils control the money. Practically every Deputy knows that local government is so many-sided and so intricate that it requires the constant, every-hour attention of somebody. The manager acts as the manager of a big business concern. Members of the council cannot be on the job all the time. They cannot watch over every detail, and it is most useful and most helpful to have somebody to carry out their policy. They direct policy, and the manager carries it out as the managing director or manager of a big business concern would do on behalf of his board of directors.

Mr. Norton

The Minister's colleagues on Dublin Corporation say that that is not so. Which is right?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

There is division among my colleagues as there is amongst the Deputy's colleagues. There is division of opinion everywhere on this question of city management. They tried it out in many places in America. In one case, where they tried it out for ten years, they changed back to the reformed old system. We are in an experimental stage here, and I think the experiment will work satisfactorily. I do not agree that the system is undemocratic. If the municipal council had not the power of the purse, it might be claimed that it was undemocratic, but representation of the people and control of the purse are preserved, and I do not think it can be, in any sense, claimed that the system is undemocratic. As Deputy Norton correctly said, this is a continuation of the policy enshrined in the Dublin and Cork Acts which have, generally speaking, worked out well.

Mr. Norton

I think the Minister opposed the Dublin Bill.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I criticised the Dublin Bill very severely.

Mr. Norton

Did you not vote against it?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I voted against many items of it and, if I were on the Opposition Benches, I should probably be criticising this Bill, too. By the time my criticisms would have been heard and discussed, the Bill would probably be a better one.

Mr. Brasier

That is the most honest statement that has come from the Government Benches yet.

Mr. Hickey

Does the Minister say that it is reasonable in administration for members of a corporation to get an agenda some of the items on which were dealt with a fortnight previously? Is not the Minister aware, also, that the Cork Corporation have suggested amendments to the City Manager Act?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I got some amendments from the council and they are being considered in the Department.

Mr. Norton

I want to get a line on the mentality of the Minister in respect of municipal government.

An Ceann Comhairle

It must be a "line" on the Bill.

Mr. Norton

In view of the recent admission by the Minister, it is difficult to understand his mentality. Is the position of the Minister for Local Government in regard to municipal government just this—that he is opposed to these dictatorial powers being given to a manager when sitting on the Opposition Benches, but that he is in favour of them when sitting on the Government Benches?

Mr. T. Murphy

The Minister has said that this is an experiment. Will he promise to refrain from further experiments until we shall have had more experience of the present experiments?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

No.

Mr. Gorey

Will the Minister consider an amendment to safeguard residents on the Kilkenny side of the river so that they will not be coerced by the corporation? Everybody wants to get a piece of territory from us and we have reached the limit of concession in that direction. Will the Minister accept an amendment that residents of districts on the Kilkenny side will not be taken into the city without their consent?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I could not promise to introduce an amendment of that kind, but I promise to consider any amendment which the Deputy or any other Deputy puts up. Any proposition to extend the boundaries on the Kilkenny side of the river or anywhere else would have to be the subject of a public inquiry and public bodies and citizens would be heard at that inquiry. Their views would be considered by the Minister for Local Government of the day and I am certain that the views of any representative body, like the Kilkenny County Council, would receive the most careful consideration.

Mr. Brasier

I was rather amazed to hear Deputy the Lord Mayor of Cork tell us that they have no control. They had actually so much control that they were in a position considerably to raise the rent on city property in which a very important industry was being conducted. If that is not control, I do not know what it is.

An Ceann Comhairle

That is out of order.

Mr. Gorey

The Minister was very open-minded with regard to development in the Kilbarry direction, but he was remarkably reticent regarding development on the other side.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I never considered the matter and it was never put up to me. I never discussed it with anybody.

Mr. Gorey

The people who put up the brief seem to know.

Mr. Little

I never heard any suggestion about that.

Question put.

The Dáil divided: Tá, 61; Níl, 12.

Tá

• Aiken, Frank.
• Bartley, Gerald.
• Beegan, Patrick.
• Bennett, George C.
• Benson, Ernest E.
• Boland, Gerald.
• Brady, Brian.
• Brasier, Brooke.
• Breen, Daniel.
• Brennan, Michael.
• Breslin, Cormac.
• Briscoe, Robert.
• Buckley, Seán.
• Carty, Frank.
• Childers, Erskine H.
• Cosgrave, William T.
• Crowley, Tadhg.
• Derrig, Thomas.
• Doyle, Peadar S.
• Flynn, John.
• Flynn, Stephen.
• Fogarty, Andrew.
• Friel, John.
• Gorry, Patrick J.
• Hogan, Daniel.
• Hughes, James.
• Humphreys, Francis.
• Kelly, James P.
• Kissane, Eamon.
• Lemass, Seán F.
• Little, Patrick J.
• Lynch, James B.
• McCann, John.
• McDevitt, Henry A.
• McEllistrim, Thomas.
• MacEntee, Seán.
• McFadden, Michael Og.
• Meaney, Cornelius.
• Moylan, Seán.
• Mulcahy, Richard.
• Munnelly, John.
• O Briain, Donnchadh.
• O Ceallaigh, Seán T.
• O'Grady, Seán.
• O'Loghlen, Peter J.
• O'Reilly, Matthew.
• O'Rourke, Daniel.
• O'Sullivan, John.
• O'Sullivan, Ted.
• Reidy, James.
• Rice, Brigid M.
• Rogers, Patrick J.
• Ryan, James.
• Ryan, Martin.
• Ryan, Robert.
• Sheridan, Michael.
• Smith, Patrick.
• Traynor, Oscar.
• Victory, James.
• Walsh, Laurence J.
• Ward, Conn.

Níl

• Coburn, James.
• Cole, John J.
• Corish, Richard.
• Daly, Patrick.
• Everett, James.
• Gorey, Denis J.
• Hickey, James.
• Keating, John.
• Keyes, Michael.
• Murphy, Timothy J.
• Norton, William.
• Pattison, James P.

Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Little and Smith; Níl: Deputies Corish and Keyes.

Question declared carried.

Committee Stage ordered for Tuesday, July 4th.