I must emphasise once again what I said on the Second Stage of the Bill, that is, there is no intention of detracting in any way from the functions of local authorities. I hope I will be able to allay the Deputy's fears in this respect and that he will accept my word as to my true intent. There is only one purpose behind this measure and that is to enable the Minister to establish a body to provide services for local authorities and health boards. Under existing legislation there is no method whereby these bodies can act collectively. This Bill will enable the Minister to set up a body to provide services which are deemed to be essential for greater efficiency in the running of local authorities and health boards. One immediate need is for a body to assist city and county managers in their dealings with staffs of local authorities and health boards on staff matters. Experience to date shows that there have been long delays from the time claims are originally made to the time when they are actually dealt with by the managers and decisions made. It is proposed under this Bill to establish immediately a body which will provide a service to the managers to enable them to deal more expeditiously with such claims.
To deal specifically with the amendment put down by Deputy Fitzpatrick, I must say at the outset that I am not prepared to accept the amendment. The purpose of the Bill is not in any way to detract from the powers of local authorities but rather to enable suitable machinery to be established to make available to them services which of their very nature need to be organised on a countrywide basis or which, for one reason or another, cannot be provided by the local authorities individually.
At this stage the only corporate body which it has been decided to establish, if the Bill becomes law, is the one to which I referred, that is, the one to enable the local authority conciliation and arbitration scheme to operate more effectively. We must recognise, however, that local government is constantly changing and evolving. It is inevitable that the need for new services will arise in the future. The central authority must be prepared and indeed, equipped to provide these services, either directly or through an appropriate body such as a corporate body of the kind envisaged in this Bill.
For this reason the Bill is framed in general terms. It does not give the Minister complete freedom to decide what corporate bodies will be established. Under section 7 the Oireachtas is given power to veto the creation of any particular body. In the case of the body to which I have already referred, that is the proposed Local Government Staff Negotiations Board, the intention is that the body will provide services for all local authorities and all health boards. The establishment of this body was decided on following consultations with the city and county managers who, as the Deputy knows, exercise all of the staff functions of local authorities, and also in consultation with the Irish Local Government Officials Union.
In the same way, I envisage that the establishment of any other corporate body would be preceded by appropriate consultations with the interests concerned. To make express statutory provision for this would not, however, be desirable, in my opinion. To limit the power to establish corporate bodies in the manner proposed in the amendment would not be desirable either because it would remove the power of initiative from the Minister who, after all, is responsible for the formulation of national policy in relation to the main local services and is also responsible for maintaining general surveillance over the whole range of local authorities' activities so as to ensure that problems and difficulties are tackled in good time.
I am not prepared to accept that the Minister should not be entitled, after considering the overall position, to establish a body to provide certain services without getting the consent of every one of the local authorities for whom the services are being made available, or of one or other of the local authority associations. I do not think that any Minister will set up a corporate body unless he is fully satisfied that there is a need for it and that its services will be utilised by local authorities.
As I have said, the Bill is not designed to transfer functions from local authorities but to make services available to them. It seems to me that the amendment may be based on the assumption that the Bill will interfere with or in some way detract from the powers of local authorities. This will not be the case. I would ask Deputy Fitzpatrick to accept it from me that there is no such intention. I cannot see how it would arise when the only purpose is to enable a service to be given to the local authorities and not to take powers from them.
