Deputy Burke has not addressed the question I posed as to why his attitude is now different regarding a virtual veto power to the local authorities in this instance: he did not see the need for such a power in the Urban Development Bill, 1982, or indeed when he proposed amendments to set up a development authority for the walled city area. It is interesting to note that as late as May this year the Deputy did not see a need for such a provision. Reference was made to the opposition to the 1982 Bill. That opposition was based quite simply on the fact that the Bill was providing for two authorities and it gave to the Minister of the day the absolute power to establish any authority in any area when and where he chose and for as long as he chose. At the time it was felt that would give too wide a power to the Minister. Deputy Burke agreed with that last May when he indicated the Minister should have power to establish a myriad of development authorities wherever a need for them arose.
We took a different view, that in each instance of a single function authority being established it should be done by a special piece of legislation in which the specific purpose of the proposed authority should be set out, its functions, powers and life span, and that if the Government of the day envisaged a need for doing such a thing the Government should be prepared to commit Exchequer funds to it. All of those matters are provided for in this Bill. In the Bill which I referred to earlier, these things were not provided for. There was to be no life span, no defined area of responsibility, no definition of when or in what part of the country the Minister might establish an authority from time to time, and no provision whatsoever for Exchequer funds to be made available.
The approach here is fundamentally different. It is that, if a move like this is being taken, it should be done by a specific power of the Oireachtas, that the Oireachtas should have explained to it the reasons the Executive seek to take such a decision, that there should be a limited time span given to the activities of the commission after which when the work is satisfactorily completed, the area would be returned to the care and maintenance of the relevant local authority. That is what is being provided for in the Bill now before the House.
I take the opportunity to reiterate my opinion that I doubt it will be found necessary to change the boundaries which are set out in the Schedule to the Bill. Certainly, as things stand, I have no intention of seeing those boundaries changed. I would have to confess, perhaps with a slight sense of irony, that there seems to be a growing Munster interest in the establishment of this commission. The House will remember the lengthy contribution by Deputy Lyons last week. I notice that the political correspondent of a newspaper published in Deputy Lyons' county complained strongly about the condition of the street running from O'Connell Bridge to Butt Bridge. He suggested that a test of the success of the commission would be how well that street was improved and to what extent it was found possible to remove the standing points for CIE buses in the street. In fact, if you examine the Schedule to the Bill, only a little less than half of that street is being included and yet already the suggestion has been made that a test of the commission and of my bona fides would be how well the commission operated in bringing about a material change and improvement in the entire length of that street.
It is probably unrealistic not to accept that from time to time people will make reference to areas on the periphery of the statutorily defined boundaries of the commission and expect that the commission should be involved in improvement schemes for those areas. I would not envisage that that type of observation ought to lead to an extension of the commission's functional area. The area essentially is the spine of the central streets, with the streets which are put onto that spine being included, normally for a distance of about 50 to 75 yards. Part of the reason for containing the commission's area to that narrow strip was to concentrate their minds on the central area and invite them to devote all their time and resources to improving that central area. Obviously, the wider the boundaries are extended the more attention will have to be given to a larger area and consequently, perhaps, the less successful over the overall area would be the activities of the commission.
The provision as it is defined in section 2 is quite a normal one in legislation of this type. I do not want to be contentious, but I have to say that it goes further than the Urban Development Areas Bill did in 1982, through the provision in subsection (4) allowing the Houses of the Oireachtas to pass a resolution annulling any modifying order which might be made by the Minister. A provision similar to that was not included in the 1982 Bill. It is reasonable, while the commission are being established by virtue of the enactment of this Bill by the House and the administrative area of the commission is set out in the Schedule to this Bill which one would hope would be adopted by this House, that any modification of the area being proposed by the Minister would be subject to the power to annul such an order by the Houses that established the commission in the first place.
