The Minister does not have to display his petty mind every five minutes. We are entitled to speak in this House. There is a danger that if I keep to this sort of talk I will be dragged down into the Minister's mire and I do not want to go down there.
We in the Fianna Fáil Party have made known some of the reasons why we are opposed to this. We believe that most people in this House if asked to give an honest view on this proposal would agree with the stand we have taken. We have been driven into a situation where the Minister is refusing to budge. Because he is adopting an obstinate stand, he is blinding himself to the reasoned arguments against his proposals. Before it is too late we are making a final plea to stop this deed being done. We feel it is in direct conflict with the true principles which should apply in the operation of local government, the element of local democracy which we are anxious to sustain and the respect which we are anxious to encourage among the community for local authorities. We have given instances of some cases where, because of the attitude displayed so far, there has been no reasoned reaction. There has been no reasoned explanation for the Minister's stance. It seems to be pure obstinacy.
Several anomalous situations could arise if this was agreed to. Take, for example, the Enniscorthy Urban District Council. I am informed that there are two officials attached to that council, the town clerk and a clerical officer. If, in the election of the elected members to that urban district council, the clerical officer decides to stand as a candidate and is elected, one will find oneself in the ridiculous situation where, at the first meeting of the council, the town clerk has no clerical officer because his clerical officer is facing him as an elected member. No one can convince me that in such a circumstance there is no conflict of interest between the loyalty due by the employee of the urban district council to his senior officer, the town clerk, and his loyalty to the electorate who put him there to represent their interests on the council. The Minister seems to be arguing the point that such a situation would not create a conflict of interest. We submit that it would. It would create a ludicrous and laughable situation. We have been asked to legislate for it here. We do not agree with it. Therefore, we cannot be asked to support it. The Minister is depriving the community of its right to elect representatives who will act as a buffer between them and the bureaucrats. He is depriving them in that he is now encouraging the bureaucrats to fill the positions on the elected local bodies.
I have knowledge and experience of an incident where an officer of a local authority was involved in a voluntary capacity in another organisation which had dealings with the local authority in which he was employed. This man was chairman of that other body. The body of which he was chairman decided at a meeting on one occasion to take certain steps because of the inactivity of the local authority in relation to the provision of certain facilities for them. The officer of the local authority, who was chairman of that body, was approached by his immediate senior officer, the town clerk. He was reprimanded and approached by the county manager and told that he would expect more of a member of his staff. In that situation the manager—to my way of thinking—acted unfairly in relation to that member of his staff who was within his rights as a citizen in acting in whatever way he could and the only way in which he could be challenged on it would be before the courts. Because he was inhibited in this way he resigned from chairmanship of the voluntary organisation of which he was a member.
If it happened in a simple case like that, would not the conflict be much greater where the officer of a local authority was an elected member and, with the information he would have from the office, he would know at meetings of the local authority whether the manager or any other official addressing the elected councillors was, in fact, telling the truth or the whole story? He would be in a position to embarrass and challenge the officials at the head of the table sitting beside the chairman of the council. It would create many situations which would be deplored normally by reasonable people. It seems quite extraordinary that the Minister has persisted in his insistence that this provision remain in the Bill and that he opposes our amendment which allows him to include this provision in an order subsequently. Our amendment is worded in such a way that no matter what order the Minister makes under this Bill he cannot include the clerical level of staff upwards. Remember that in some authorities the total number of elected members can be as low as 12. Galway Corporation elects 12 members. I am nearly sure that there would be around 12 clerical officers working for the local authority in Galway. One could extend that idea as allowed now by the law, as the Minister suggests, and imagine a situation where the 12 of them were elected as the 12 councillors. It might be stretching the imagination a bit far but it is certainly not prohibited by the Bill or under any order the Minister would be entitled to make under it.
Where are all the pious words said at various places by the Minister and other members of his Government before they were elected, at the time of their election and since their election encouraging the expansion of local democracy, encouraging people to take a greater interest in local authorities and the move, which both sides of the House support, to give more power to local authorities by devolving more responsibility from the Department of Local Government and allowing more decision making at local level? If the purpose of all of this is to have the people's representatives replaced by bureaucrats, then we consider it to be a detrimental step. The Minister, quite dangerously, stated yesterday that he was going only a short bit of the way now. There seemed to be an implication that he might be tempted to go even further.
