I am very pleased to see the Minister back in the House as I was very much afraid at an earlier stage that he had cut and run.
Local Government Bill, 1991: Second Stage (Resumed)
The following motion was moved by the Minister for the Environment on Tuesday 7 May 1991:
That the Bill be now read a Second Time.
Debate resumed on the following amendment:
To delete all words after "That" and substitute the following:
"having regard to:
the clear intention of the Government to provide by law for the gerrymandering of electoral areas in the County Boroughs of Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Waterford and Galway; and
the undemocratic and incompetent arrangements proposed by the Government for the debating of the Bill; and
the failure of the Bill to deal effectively with the crisis in local services, including housing, roads and local financing;
Dáil Éireann declines to give a Second Reading to the Bill."
— (Deputy Howlin).
If Deputy Gilmore knew anything about the Minister for the Environment from the west he would know that he never cuts or runs from anything.
That is fighting talk.
I am delighted to see the Minister facing it like a man.
There are no white feathers where I come from.
That is all the pity. Before Question Time I was dealing with the functions of local authorities which the Minister claims are being greatly extended. While this may appear to be the case we find as we go through the Bill in some detail that they are not because of the extent to which the local authorities will be constrained by ministerial orders and the sub-clauses of the Bill which delineate those areas where local authorities may not act.
A good example is Part VI of the Bill which deals with the establishment of committees and joint committees of local authorities — in itself a very good proposal
Then we come to section 40 which reads:
(1) The Minister may make regulations—
(a) as respects the area of jurisdiction of a committee or joint committee,
(b) as respects the dissolution of a committee or joint committee,
(c) specifying conditions, restrictions or other provisions which shall apply in relation to the delegation of functions to, or the revocation of a delegation of functions to, a committee or joint committee,
(d) as respects the procedures, general administration and general finances of committees and joint committees,
(e) as respects such other matters relating to committees and joint committees as the Minister considers appropriate.
On the one hand, the Bill and the Minister's promotion for it states that the powers of local authorities are being extended, that local authorities may now come together and form joint committees to carry out specific functions between them, but then we come to the handicap the Minister is inserting — section 40 under which he will make regulations on everything from the areas the joint committees may cover to the functions of the committees, to the dissolution of the committees, again puncturing the whole thrust of the provision in the Bill.
Then we have the proposals in relation to Dublin. I would like to remind the Minister of the comments he made in the House on 15 May 1990 when replying to the debate on the postponement of the local elections. He made a number of comments relating to the organisation of local government in Dublin County of which, given the contents of this Bill, it might be useful to remind him. He referred to what the previous Government did in 1985. I quote from column 1666, Volume 398, of the Official Report of 15 May 1990:
What was done? Nothing, except to increase the membership from 36 to 78 and what followed might best be described as an exercise in illusion by Fine Gael. The three counties of Belgard, Fingal and Dún Laoghaire/ Rathdown were conjured up for the local elections, and for that purpose only, having had a shadowy existence as electoral counties, something never heard of in Irish legislation until then. If there was ever a more half baked scheme for electing people from counties which never existed and still do not, that was it.
That was the Minister's description of the system of local government we have in Dublin County. You can imagine my surprise when I find the Bill the Minister has brought into the House contains the very same structure for the organisation of local government in Dublin County. What he is proposing in practice is to leave in existence Dublin County Council, Dún Laoghaire Borough Council, to establish three area committees which correspond to the three electoral counties to which I have just referred — Fingal, Belgard as it was called then — the Minister is now calling it South County Dublin although it is West County Dublin — and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, all corresponding exactly to the three electoral counties the Minister described only a year ago as a half baked scheme for electing people from counties which never existed. The election which will take place in County Dublin on 27 June will be to exactly the same bodies that members were elected to in June 1985. There is no change in the city council. The county council, Dún Laoghaire Borough Council and the various area committees will continue to exist.
I happen to know something about how badly that system has worked over the last six years because I have been a member of Dún Laoghaire Borough Council and Dublin County Council. Dublin County Council was a farce. We have 78 members and we never completed an agenda. We rarely got beyond section 4 and material contravention motions largely due to the courtesy of members from the Minister's own party. The district committees, which were established and are being enshrined here as area committees, have never functioned properly. They had some kind of limbo existence which will not be improved by the measures proposed in this Bill. There has been continuing confusion between the respective areas of Dublin Corporation, Dublin County Council and Dún Laoghaire Borough Council. For example, Dublin Corporation have houses built in the Dublin County Council area. The tenants of those houses have no say in how those houses are managed because they cannot elect members to the body of which they are tenants and which is responsible for the management of the houses in which they live.
Everybody recognises that what was needed in Dublin was a fundamental reform of local authority structures. What was needed in Dublin was the creation of a Dublin metropolitan council which would have overall responsibility for strategic planning in the greater Dublin area. We have not got that.
The Minister informed us yesterday that he proposes to set up a region which will incorporate all of Dublin, Kildare, Wicklow and Meath. That is not what is required in Dublin. What is required in Dublin is a metropolitan council for the greater Dublin area which could well include parts of north Wicklow, east Kildare and Meath, which are, in effect, part of the greater Dublin area now, so there would be overall strategic planning.
What is needed in Dublin is a system of local authorities based on the communities of Dublin. The Barrington committee recommended in particular that there be some kind of authority for the Tallaght area. That is ignored in the Bill before us. The Minister has simply rubber stamped and put back into effect the bodies established in 1985 which have had six years to prove they cannot work, and we are being saddled with them again. If anything, the Minister's proposals will add to the chaos and confusion in Dublin. Not only will we have the existing authorities, we now have the area committees with overlapping responsibilities.
The Bill provides that Dublin County Council and Dún Laoghaire Borough Council can devolve some of their functions to these committees, but then there is the catch. You cannot devolve functions relating to estimates. What really determines what a local authority do are the financial considerations. Therefore, in effect, these area committees will exist as a kind of third tier of local government, adding to an already confused and frustrating situation. If the purpose of this Bill and the structural reform contained in this Bill are confined to Dublin, I am afraid it has been very much an abysmal failure. Part V of the Bill deals with the boundary committees. The Minister is setting up an independent boundary committee to examine the boundaries of local authorities and make recommendations to him. Let us examine this question of independence. First the committee will be appointed by the Minister. We have an unfortunate record that bodies appointed by Ministers, particularly by Ministers of the main Government party, are anything but independent. I do not think the Minister can claim that the boundary committee he is proposing will be independent.
They will.
Secondly, it does not matter what the committee recommend because the Minister will make his own decisions ultimately. The decision on what the boundaries of local authorities will be will be taken by the Minister. The role of the committee is purely recommendatory, and it is quite wrong of the Minister to suggest this in some way will create an independent committee which will decide local authority boundaries. On top of that——
What does the Deputy want?
There are a number of options. We could have an independent committee which would decide the local authority boundaries. We could have an independent committee which would identify the persons or the constituent parts which would make up that committee. As the Barrington Committee recommended, there could be an implementation commission headed by a High Court judge whose independence could not be impugned. Before the Minister says that the intention of the Barrington Committee was for the implementation commission to have an overseeing role in relation to all local government reform, clearly an independent commission of that kind headed by a High Court judge could have a function in delineating boundaries.
The constituency boundaries set up have always been accepted. Why is the Deputy making this case when he knows it is not substantiated?
Of all the examples the Minister could have chosen, the most unfortunate is the revision of the constituencies. The Minister walked himself into extraordinary trouble when he attempted to set down the terms of reference for the previous commission.
Is the Deputy casting a slur on the President of the High Court?
I am casting no slur.
I cannot allow cross-questioning.
The Minister is asking a question.
Acting Chairman
I suggest you leave it to the Chair to decide who is cross-questioning. We are dealing with matters which could more appropriately be discussed on Committee Stage.
The Minister implied that I was casting a slur on the President of the High Court. I was not. I am stating that he, as Minister for the Environment, attempted to arrive at a situation where the Dáil constituencies would be gerrymandered. He is building into this Bill procedures whereby he will be the ultimate arbiter of the boundaries of local authority electoral areas. The Minister's record of attempting to gerrymander boundaries does not leave me with any confidence about either the independence or fairness with which these boundaries will be altered.
The regional structures proposed in the Barrington report are not defined in the Bill. There is a provision for the establishment of regional bodies but they are to be designated. The boundaries of the regions and the composition of the bodies will be decided by the Minister. In his speech yesterday he said it was his intention to establish these regional authorities on the basis of the boundaries proposed by the Barrington Committee. There is one very important difference. The Barrington Committee recommended the rationalisation of the existing regional structure whereby there are different regional bodies for different purposes, i.e. regional health boards, regional tourism boards, regional divisions of State companies such as the IDA, and regional bodies with some role in relation to EC Structural Funds.
The Barrington report recommended that the entire regional makeup should be rationalised and that regional authorities should be elected democratically. This Bill is a far cry from that. We are getting yet another regional body, not to rationalise the existing bodies but to add to them. The report recommended that initially these bodies should be appointed by the members of the local authorities within the region. After a five-year period they would be directly elected. The question of direct elections to regional authorities has been ignored in this Bill. Instead these bodies are to be elected by the county councils whose members will comprise them. Deputy Mitchell drew attention to the provisions of this Bill which amend the 1985 Act. The effect of these provisions is that the procedures which have heretofore existed whereby minority or opposition parties on local authorities can come together in groups to make sure they have some representation on committees are being undermined. It could be that a Fianna Fáil controlled council will simply decide that all five members of the regional authority will be members of that party. That kind of thing has happened in the past. There is no guarantee that the composition of the regional bodies will reflect in any way the political composition of the local authorities.
I mentioned earlier that I welcome the provisions in relation to planning. I am particularly glad that the procedures governing the use of section 4 motions for planning purposes are to be amended to provide that the motion will have to be signed by 75 per cent of the members for the electoral area to which the planning application relates and then have the support of 75 per cent of the members of the council in order to be passed. I have called for the extension of that principle to the area of material contraventions. The Minister said yesterday the principle is being extended in the Bill. The problem relating to section 4 motions has been given a lot of public attention but it is by no means the worst problem in the planning area.
Most section 4 motions have been for one-off housing developments where a political supporter of a particular councillor or group of councillors applies pressure to bring in a section 4 motion when planning permission has been or is about to be refused. The philosophy behind this action was described by a member of Galway County Council as based on the "God given right of a man to build a house on his own field". That philosophy underlies many of the section 4 motions on county council agendas. The kindest thing that can be said about section 4 motions is that most of them have related to very bad planning. A survey carried out by An Taisce identified that not all county councils have been abusing the section 4 procedure. The abuse has mainly been concentrated in five or six county council areas.
The worst abuse relates to material contraventions. This is a much bigger league. I have seen during the past six years on Dublin County Council the gross abuse of the material contravention procedure. Month after month Fianna Fáil members of that council granted planning permissions for large-scale developments which materially contravened the county development plan. One hundred and thirty-one material contraventions have been passed by Dublin County Council since the 1985 local elections, of which 80 per cent were proposed or seconded by members of the Fianna Fáil group on the council. By and large the Fianna Fáil group have voted en bloc, with some individual exceptions, to support those material contraventions. The effect has been to give planning permission for about 4,000 additional houses in County Dublin. Some of the contraventions related to very large developments.
I estimate that the material contraventions which were passed by Dublin County Council had added something of the order of £150 million to the value of the property concerned. It is fortunately coincidental that we are debating this Local Government Bill and the changes in relation to planning on the same days when a Private Members' Bill is before this House dealing with questions of ethics in Government and in political life. I am convinced there is a close relationship between property, planning and politics in Dublin County Council. In relation to some of the material contraventions which have been put before Dublin County Council I do not accept that the motivation behind those planning proposals was entirely out of the interests of development and planning in County Dublin. There are very serious questions that need to be answered by the sponsors of those motions as to why they insisted on sponsoring those planning motions which, in many cases, were against the express recommendation and express report of the county manager and against the expressed views of the county engineers who have argued that in some cases they created traffic hazards. The question arises as to whether there was a consideration of money, whether there were financial contributions to the party promoting those motions or financial contributions to the council members who were promoting them. These are very fundamental ethical questions about local government that need to be addressed. I am very pleased that the Bill does provide for a 75 per cent majority now for the passing of a material contravention motion because, at the very least, if the public of County Dublin elect even 25 per cent of the membership of the new council — people who are opposed to the abuse of the material contravention procedure — they will protect the county for the future.
There is a number of provisions in the miscellaneous section of the Bill to which I would like to refer. One relates to the procedures proposed in relation to the appointment and the tenure of office of city and county managers. The Minister explained that the purpose behind this was to provide for a term of office for a city or county manager which would be something akin to the term of office and the procedures which exist for the appointment and the tenure of office of departmental secretaries. I can see and understand the logic behind that. We would all accept that anybody who holds office for a very long time can go stale in it and that there is a desirability for turnover. I am concerned that the question of tenure of office of city and county managers is being put in the hands of the Minister. For example, section 47 (1) (a) states:
a period of such length as the Minister specifies by order.
The question that raises relates to the independence of city and county managers from the Minister for the Environment and the responsiveness of city and county managers to their own elected councils. We already have a situation in Irish local government whereby much of the work of local government is, in effect, decided in the Custom House because of all the financial considerations and procedures established. We have the separation of Executive and reserved functions and in most good working councils there is a good relationship between the elected council and the city or county manager. In most councils, city and county managers are responsive to the wishes of the elected members. I am concerned that the relationship between the city and county managers and the elected members is determined by ministerial order. I am concerned that, as time goes on, city and county managers, because of the provisions of section 47, may become extensions of the Minister in the local council chamber. It is not clear either what will be the position of city and county managers after the term specified by the Minister has expired. Is it intended that they move on to another county or that they simply give up the job? That needs to be spelt out and perhaps we will have a response on Committee Stage.
I mentioned earlier that the Barrington recommendations have been, by and large, ignored in this Bill. Barrington made 75 specific recommendations in relation to changes in local government. I have counted 63 of them which are not contained in this legislation. It may be argued that some of those recommendations were of a longer term nature and that some will be contained in subsequent legislation. I have mentioned some already that I felt should have been included in this legislation. For example, the legislation should have set out clearly what regional structure is envisaged. It should have set out the provision for the direct election of regional authorities rather than the system that is recommended. Barrington recommended specifically the establishment of an implementation commission which would have overall responsibility for overseeing the devolution of powers to local authorities because he identified correctly the historic unwillingness of Government Departments to devolve any of their functions or powers to local level. The way he saw around this was the establishment of an independent commission chaired by a High Court judge who would oversee it. That is not provided for in the Bill.
In relation to the question of devolution of responsibilties from Government Departments to local authorities, Barrington specifically recommended that that should be given to the Department of the Taoiseach: that is not provided for in the Bill. He made a specific recommendation about changing of the Limerick city and county boundary: I see no reference to that either in the Bill. Barrington recommended also that pending the establishment of sub-county structures the elections for urban authorities should be deferred but that they be deferred only for a fixed period. Unfortunately, the Bill defers them indefinitely.
I referred earlier to the recommendation Barrington made in relation to local government elections, that they should not be capable of postponement by central Government: there is no provision for that in the Bill. He makes recommendations in relation to chairpersons of councils, and that is not referred to in the Bill either. The only matter which is referred to in the Bill about council chairpersons relates to their expenses rather than to their functions.
Barrington made a number of recommendations in relation to the functions of council chairpersons, and they are not contained in the Bill. He recommended specifically that there should be structured arrangements to facilitate contact between local authorities and community groups. There is no reference to community organisations in the Bill. One of the specific demands made has been for a more structured way to involve local voluntary community organisations in the work of local government: this Bill makes no reference to that.
Barrington makes a number of recommendations on the operational aspects of local authorities relating to matters such as staff training, the appointment of commercial auditors to audit the local authority accounts and the establishment of an efficiency audit group to review the performance of individual local authorities. I would have thought the junior partner in Government would have insisted on this, given their recent talk about value for money in local government. Again this is not provided for in the Bill. In all, 63 of the 75 recommendations contained in the report of the expert committee have not been incorporated in this Bill. The principle which underlines the report of the expert committee, the principle of subsidiarity, has been stood on its head and what we are getting is a far cry from what was recommended.
Finally I want to deal with the question of finance, which of course is not dealt with at all in the Bill. The expert committee were asked to examine how the existing system of financing local authorities might be rejigged in some way and they had a study carried out on it. As has been mentioned here before, unless the question of local authority finance is addressed seriously and local authorities know where they stand in relation to local authority financing, all the time spent talking about reform of the structures is wasted. I want to raise this issue specifically because today we had another example of a householder being jailed for his protest against the payment of service charges. Today, a Cork trade unionist, Mr. Brendan O'Neill was jailed and he becomes the fourth Cork citizen in the space of as many weeks to have been jailed for the non payment of water charges. I think the present Government owe us some explanation as to why they have not addressed the Local Government Financial Provisions Act 1983 and amended it as they had promised. I cannot imagine any difficulties in Cabinet on this issue because I have a letter dated 23 May 1985 which is addressed to a senior representative of the Association of Combined Residents Association which is signed by Robert Molloy T.D., who was then Director of Elections for Fianna Fáil.
Sir, will the Deputy read the letter into the record?
I will read it because I think it should be put on record. Deputy Molloy said and I quote:
I was very pleased to meet with the delegation from ACRA and I believe our mutual interest in the financing of local authorities will help towards the introduction of a more equitable system which will find greater acceptance in the community generally.
I promised to reply to you setting out the Fianna Fáil position in three areas raised by you. The following is the position in each case:
1. Fianna Fáil are totally opposed to the new system of local charges and, on return to office, will abolish these charges and repeal the legislation under which they are imposed, namely the Local Government Financial Provisions No. 2 Act of 1983.
In its place, we will introduce new legislation which will end the present unsatisfactory position and put local finances on a sound basis.
This legislation will provide that Local Authorities will receive a guaranteed statutory contribution each year from the Central Exchequer. This exchequer contribution will be sufficient to provide for a satisfactory level of necessary services.
The new legislation will eliminate the present uncertainty whereby Local Authorities cannot anticipate what the grant from the Central Exchequer each year will be and which has compelled County Managers to impose a new and unacceptable level of service charges against the wishes of the great majority of the local community.
The legislation which will provide for the new statutory grant from the Central Exchequer will not contain any new power to enable elected members to introduce new charges.
2. On the question of an amnesty for those who have not paid water or service charges Fianna Fáil believe this is a matter that must be dealt with by the local authority who levied the charges. Under Coalition legislation the manager has the power to waive the charges.
That was the position in 1985. Fianna Fáil have been in Government since 1987 and no legislation has been introduced to amend the Local Government Act, 1983 which allowed the imposition of charges. I cannot see why there should be great difficulties in Cabinet between the two parties since the signatory of this letter is a Minister who has expressed considerable interest in matters of local government over the past two years and was a member of the sub-committee which produced this Bill. He has been on the media over the past few days saying what a fine Bill it is. It is a pity it does not include the amendment to the Financial Provisions Act, 1983. I intend to table an amendment on Committee Stage if we reach this part of the Bill during the limited time we have been afforded for Committee Stage so that we can see whether there is any real intention by the Fianna Fáil Party, in the form in which they survived after 1986, or by the author of this leter, who still retains an interest in local government to abolish service charges. I was particularly shocked to hear the Minister for the Environment stating categorically over the weekend that there is no intention to amend the legislation or to abolish service charges, which was a specific commitment given by Fianna Fáil in 1985. Householders throughout the country took Fianna Fáil at their word but the party who promised to abolish water charges are now jailing the householders who refuse to pay them. This is a disgrace. The Government should make contact immediately with Cork Corporation and make sure that no more people are jailed for this and the legislation should be amended to give effect to the promises they made on many occasions.
In conclusion what we have before us is not a Bill to reform local government. It gives the appearance of reform and of extending the powers of local authorities at one level but pulls them back at another level. The overall net effect of the Bill is to concentrate even more power in the hands of the Minister and in the Custom House and to undermine and erode further the system of local government we have in this country.
Notice taken that 20 Members were not present; House counted and 20 Members being present,
It amazes me that on a Bill such as this, and when we hear so much about there not being enough time allowed to debate it, the House should waste time with a call for a quorum. I find it a contradiction for the Opposition to complain that four days are not enough to debate the Bill and then to waste precious time in this way. I hope there will be no repeat performance.
Unlike Deputies on the other side of the House, I commend the Minister and the Government for bringing forward the legislation at this time. As a member of a local authority, I am pleased that we should have a reform of local government. Whatever the cynics may say, the Bill represents the first critical evaluation of local government for more than 40 years. I recognise that it is only the first step, that has been clarified by the Minister, and that wider reform is envisaged. To those of us who have made an effort to study local government and the difficulties attached to it, there is no doubt that it is not a simple issue to commence consideration of local government reform. The first step in such reform is to re-evaluate the structures of local government. As a general principle, I welcome the Minister's phased approach to this long neglected area of public representation that is close to all our hearts, particularly to those of us who are members of local councils.
Deputies must know that the first commitment to reform local government was made by Fianna Fáil in 1971 when the then Government published a White Paper on local government reorganisation. Unfortunately, those proposals were not taken up by the Coalition Government in the seventies. The Bill before the House today again follows a commitment made by the present Government to review the whole basis and operation of local government.
In the wider context, the Bill also highlights what has been a constant feature of the present Government, whether demonstrated in economic issues or in various other issues, that they are not afraid to face up to the issues of the day. The Bill stands as a testimony to the Government's record of doing something about local government reform. This is thoughtful and wide-ranging legislation that reflects the extent of consultation on local government that the Government sought and received in the past 12 months.
This time last year Fianna Fáil decided to set up a special committee to consider local government reform. That committee met on 17 occasions between May and December 1990. I was a member of that committee. Much work and effort have gone into looking at local government, considering the needs of local government and examining the best way to serve the public who elect local authority members. The Government also took independent advice from the Barrington committee. I am satisfied that following all that consultation, the Bill before the House today is a fairly comprehensive first step towards local government reform.
I am sure that all Members would agree that an overhaul of local government is overdue. The present system is more like local administration than local government, which is particularly frustrating for members of local authorities. Some members of local authorities are due to stand for local election again in June. If it is expected to have local authority members of high calibre, then it is important to strengthen the powers of local councillors.
The Bill takes the first steps to change the process that was moving towards a system of local administration rather than local government by assigning additional powers to local authorities and by removing the many constraints of the ultra vires rule. That rule is outdated and old-fashioned and has greatly inhibited innovation and creativity at local level. Of course, it is a hangover from the 19th century. Dealing with it now highlights how antiquated our local system has been and how complicated the task of the Government, of the Barrington committee, and of anyone who considered the matter. To attempt to reform local government is a complicated task.
There is also more scope for reform, and that is to seek greater involvement of community groups. In other areas community groups have become more important, and have a lot to offer the general public. Community interests should be brought more into the process of local government. An example in my own constituency occurs in the town of Ashbourne, County Meath. Ashbourne has no form of local government of its own, despite having a population of 5,500, which would probably mean it qualifies under the present threshold provision. I am concerned that growing new towns such as Ashbourne — particularly those close to the capital city and to where the population is moving out from the city — do not get the individual attention they deserve because representations on their behalf are made by county councillors or voluntary organisations as distinct from local public representatives specifically elected from the town. There is no doubt about the great work done by voluntary local organisations, and we would all commend them for the work they do, for their commitment, and energy but, as legislators, we must not look to them to provide the only form of local development. Instead, they should be involved in the process of local government and we should draw on their expertise and knowledge.
As I have said, local government reform is a complicated business, especially after 40 years of neglect. What I express here is a hope that appropriate supplementary tiers of local government will be established to suit the needs of developing areas such as Ashbourne, which I used as an example.
I wish to refer to the sections of the Bill that relate to planning. The planning process as constituted at present suffers from a lack of uniformity in approach. We have heard much today about the position in Dublin County Council and how the section 4 provision and material contraventions are dealt with by that council. In County Meath we are concerned that there is no uniform approach to dealing with planning throughout the country. In the Bill the emphasis is on the maximum input from local representatives, and I fully support this initiative. In County Meath we had unofficially implemented a guideline that we would leave it to the local area to bring forward the appropriate motions in relation to planning, but it is important that this is enshrined in the Bill.
In a county like Meath, particularly the south-eastern part of which is becoming increasingly attractive for once-off development, planning is a very big issue. We have heard much about the position in Dublin but in County Meath it can be said that the members of the local authority never abused any of their powers, particularly the section 4 provision and material contraventions. Up to the end of last year there had been only three section 4 cases in County Meath; one in the sixties, one three years ago and one last September. I am concerned that the public might get the impression that all county councillors are abusing their powers under section 4, but that is not the case. The opposite applies, and has applied in County Meath.
Early this year members of Meath County Council were concerned that the policies and principles enshrined in the Meath county development plan were not being implemented in planning decisions. Councillors found that planning permission was being refused to, say, farmers with 50 or 100 acres of land when it should have been granted. Councillors in Meath then decided to use the section 4 procedure. Again, I stress that this is in no way related to the fact that the local elections will be held in June. It is strictly due to the fact that the councillors have been under much pressure over the past number of years concerning planning applications. They felt the policies set out in the county development plan were not being implemented.
Councillors are concerned about consistency. Public representatives in counties such as Meath who do not abuse their powers are frustrated because they feel they are not listened to. One must bear in mind that county councillors are elected by the people to represent them. When a person votes for a county councillor at election time he or she expects that councillor to be of some assistance when applying for planning permission, considering that he or she elects the councillor to the board which will take the decision on the planning application. It is for this reason that I propose that there be a formal planning committee in every county.
People from local authorities planning committees, such as Dublin and Cork, may ask why we do not set up such a committee in County Meath. We attempted to do so last September-October but were told it would be outside the bounds of the legislation to attempt to discuss individual planning applications at a meeting of the county council. While other counties seem to be in a position to have planning sub-committees Meath County Council have received legal advice to the effect that they cannot have such a committee.
There are inconsistencies in the county in relation to planning decisions and inconsistencies between the different counties in that committees are relevant in some counties and not in others. Planning sub-committees should be established formally so that councillors can be involved in the early stage of the planning process. Part of the problem at present is that county councillors become involved at a very advanced stage of planning with the result that they are too often unfairly criticised regarding accountability and so on. The people, having elected a local public representative should be in a position to ensure that that person has some involvement in their case from the start.
In relation to the setting up of regional committees the Bill recognises that local authority planning, and other issues, cannot be hemmed in by fixed boundaries. In counties such as Meath, the one with which I am most familiar, we have a wider catchment area. Our proximity to Dublin has a huge impact on planning and development, roads and the local economy. It can be said that our close proximity to Dublin is a positive aspect, particularly from an industrial point of view in that we attract small industries to the county, but on the other hand there are huge implications for planning and development and roads. Given the increasing importance of a wider role for local authorities, section 43 is a timely and welcome innovation. There is need for greater inter-council or regional policy co-ordination on matters such as roads, planning, development, tourism, the environment and so on. The Bill not only encourages this but makes it possible to put it into practice. I look forward to the setting up of the regional authorities.
I was a little surprised last night by Deputy Jim Mitchell's concern about the inclusion of Meath, Wicklow and Kildare with the Dublin region. He was concerned on a population basis but I would look at it more positively. Close proximity to Dublin has had a positive impact on County Meath. There is a strong relationship between the counties surrounding the capital city and this should be recognised. Perhaps it is because Deputy Mitchell is a Dublin Deputy that he looks at the position differently. To bring those four counties together on a regional basis would be a welcome step. For example, as regards planning there are huge discrepancies between Meath and Dublin. A planning application may be granted for a bungalow on the Dublin side of the border while on the Meath side planning permission may be refused for similar development. There are huge inconsistencies in these areas.
Four national primary routes run through County Meath, the N1, N2, N3 and N4. We all know that State funding is available for national primary routes. People leave the capital city on the route closest to them, travel the N1, N4 or whatever and then travel to the route they wish to take for the rest of their journey, whether to the north or west, crossing the regional and county roads in County Meath. Therefore, about 20 miles outside the city there is very heavy traffic on the non-national primary routes and this causes great difficulties.
I stress that Meath have a huge input in the funding of local roads but it is difficult to have an impact because of our close proximity to the city. Apart from the traffic on the national primary routes there is a lot of cross traffic on the regional and county roads. I hope the regional authorities will consider matters such as this and find solutions. Contrary to what was said here last night I welcome the fact that Meath, Wicklow and Kildare which have a great relationship will be included with Dublin as one region.
With regard to the relationship between local and central Government all agree that the Department of the Environment are obliged to become involved in far too much detail. For example, I do not see why the Department should be involved in the detailed level of design and planning in relation to housing, as this often results in unnecessary delays. I am sure the Department would be far happier if they could tell a local authority that they would give them funding for 40 houses which the authority could design and plan themselves, including getting tenders. They could also be told that if they are able to provide 41 houses from the money, the Department will be delighted but that if they can only provide 39 houses it will be the problem of the authority. This would be a better system. I recognise that the Department have a central role to play but there are areas where they should rely on the local knowledge to expedite matters and to bring greater efficiency to the making and implementation of decisions.
Section 9 of the Bill provides for the transfer from central to local government of certain functions which would result in greater efficiency and I think we will see this as time passes. Apart from housing there are group water schemes, grants and subsidies, sewerage schemes and many other areas in which the Department have a role but, within their present brief of planning and the allocation of plans, a great deal of time would be saved if the Department availed of local knowledge and the expertise of local representatives and institutions in detailing areas of Government policy and action.
One point which troubles me in relation to the estimates for local authorities is the manner in which the accounts are drawn up. It is difficult for most public representatives — even accountants — to decipher the Book of Estimates. We all do our best to figure it out and we make a fair attempt at doing so but life would be a lot simpler if the normal accountancy balance sheet system was used which would also give a clear picture to county councillors that the projects for which they pass expenditure are implemented further down the line. It is difficult to establish how much money is being spent on any project because part of it is under the heading of administration, engineers, roads, staff, maintenance and so on. If the system could be improved it would be of great benefit to local public representatives.
I also think there is no reason for a local authority not employing private contractors to supply local services if they are cheaper. Our aim is to increase efficiency in local government. In County Meath there was uproar when a decision was taken by the council at the end of 1989 to privatise the refuse service; people went as far as coming into the council chamber and dumping refuse on the councillors sitting in the chamber at the time. In spite of the objections, three months later when the private system came into operation, people were delighted with the service and did not look back. When the refuse collection was the responsibility of the local authority there were many complaints; people did not want to pay as they said they did not use the service as it did not pass their doors. We were all plagued with complaints regarding the refuse service but since it was privatised nobody has complained. People are now getting better value and, from our point of view as legislators, the local authority are not losing huge sums of money as they did when they were responsible for it.
The provision in section 5 of the Bill for annual reports for local authorities is welcome. Another area impinges on the status of local government, the position and powers of the county manager. Managers are referred to at various points throughout the Bill; they are — and rightly so — a central part of the whole apparatus of local government. By and large, they are an efficient part of that apparatus. However, this brings me back to the theme of answerability and the need for a sub-committee system, to which I referred earlier. A case can be made for a more formal and direct working relationship between officials and public representatives. As it is, the relationship between the manager and local representative is too loose and vague and part of this looseness derives from the way in which the 1978 legislation has developed. There are cases where councillors, as I said earlier on, have too little input in the formulation of estimates and indeed subsequently ensuring that the decisions and the wishes which they felt were implicit in the estimates are implemented later on in the year.
Unless the relationship between the manager and the public representatives or the county councillors is formalised the grey area which has been developing since 1978 will become even greyer. The present system all too often puts officials against county councillors or vice versa as if they were two opposing interests. Obviously this is of no assistance to the reputation or effectiveness of local government or indeed to the impression which it creates for the public. Everything must be done to ensure that the relationship between the county councillor and the public official is mutually beneficial and, most important, will be for the betterment of the people whom the council serve.
Every means possible should be used to ensure that local government is not only an integrated operation but, most important, that it is seen to be so. I am sure we all agree that there is a good case for treating local government in Dublin as a separate concern. The Dublin region has seen remarkable growth in recent years and the local government structures rooted in the 19th century are inadequate to meet the development planning structures and the needs of a modern capital city. The division of the region into four councils, as proposed in Part VI of the Bill, is welcome.
The Bill marks an important step in the reorganisation of local government. It is easy for some to be critical given the complexity of the task but the Minister achieved a major advance and, as he indicated in recent days, it is just the first step. Not only does the Bill stand on its own but it is also part of a larger piece. Those of us who are members of local authorities welcome this reform of local government and the local authorities which we represent. The needs of 1991 must be based on legislation of 1991 and not on legislation of 1988. The Bill is realistic and relevant and I am very pleased to have the opportunity to speak on it.
We are dealing with a Bill against the background where local authorities throughout the country are unable to fulfil their legal obligations to the public. At present there are 30,000 people nationwide waiting for housing and many of them have been waiting for three or four years. In my own city alone the figure is close to 2,000 people on the waiting list and I forecast that, by midsummer in Cork city alone, 2,000 people will be awaiting housing. On top of those figures there are people in inadequate local authority housing, living in houses which are too small or which have no bathrooms.
I was amazed yesterday in an answer to a question I tabled to the Minister to hear that there is no crisis. How can the Minister be so blind as to say there is no crisis when young children are walking our streets homeless? That is the background to our approach to this co-called reform of local government. We are so disorganised at local authority level that on the one hand we are not funding the capital programme for housing and the Department of the Environment are not allocating sufficient funding for the capital programme. The Department of Social Welfare are paying out enormous amounts of money in supplementary welfare allowances to people who are living in hovels and slums in cities and rural areas. I want to give an example, and I can stand over these figures. Over a period of one month £45,000 was paid out in supplementary welfare allowances to people in Cork to subsidise their rents. People who pay £70 per week for a hovel are subsidised to the tune of almost £60 by the health board; the health board have no choice but to subsidise these unfortunate people who need help. Because of the failure of the local government system, money which could be spent on building houses is going into the pockets of landlords, some of whom are so unscrupulous they would make Rachman look like the St. Vincent de Paul.
While this is happening the Minister has reduced the allocation to the capital programme. In 1985 the allocation for housing was £585 million; in 1986, £620 million and in 1987, £698 million. When the present Minister took office he halved the allocation to £377 million in 1988 and reduced it further to £296 million in 1989. That is the background to the present problems. These problems cannot be solved by reforming the structures; they can only be solved by reforming the funding of local authorities. The Minister has walked away from these problems. He has walked away from the thorny and vital question of funding local authorities. He is a stale Minister and should resign. He has been in office for four years and he is tired. The points I have made are accurate.
I want to refer to the Estimates and the spending by the Department of the Environment. In 1989, the latest year for which I have figures, at a time of crisis, the Minister underspent by £2.5 million the amount provided for maintenance of local authority houses. At the end of the day he gave £1.632 million back to the Minister for Finance. When a Minister behaves in such an inefficient manner at a time of crisis he should resign.
I want to refer further to the background to the current housing crisis in local authority areas. Two months ago amid a great fanfare of trumpets, television lights and great hype, the Minister announced a new housing policy. However, we are still waiting to hear now he will implement some of the provisions of that much heralded housing policy. The Minister admitted at long last that he did not bother to check the legal implications of some of those provisions, that he has run into major legal difficulties and that it is unlikely many of the proposals will be implemented in the short term. It is about time that bungling Minister got out of office and let somebody else do the job which needs to be done. That is the background to the present problems in the housing area.
The problems in regard to roads and sanitary facilities have been well documented by previous speakers, I do not intend to repeat them as time is limited. The Minister has failed the people of Ireland in regard to roads, sewerage schemes and the environment, even to cutting the grass in housing estates. This Bill refers to reform of the structures of local authorities but no reference is made to reform of financing local authorities. This is where the Minister is ducking the issue.
Democracy is not working in the case of local authorities at present. This Bill is supposed to be about local democracy but there has not been much that is democratic about the way it has been handled so far. I was expected to stand here today and speak on the Bill from an informed viewpoint. However, I only received the Bill at lunch time on Monday and I had to get advice on certain aspects yesterday — I am not an expert on all areas of local authorities. The Minister has tried to push through this Bill at a time when we should be giving serious and detailed consideration to all aspects of local government.
The Local Government Bill, 1991, as initiated by the Minister for the Environment, is a stone age solution to a 20th century problem. Local authorities, both management and elected members, have waited with anticipation for this Bill. However, I believe they have been betrayed and let down badly because the Minister has not considered fully the most vital aspects of local authorities.
Local authorities have been starved of cash and stripped of their powers since 1977 with the elimination of domestic rates and the ongoing dilution of the rates support grant which was promised by the Government as full compensation for the losses incurred by the abolition of domestic rates. Local authorities have been under siege for many years as a result of the gradual reduction in real terms in financial support from the Government. They have had to eliminate or reduce seriously their services to the public. They have had to sack staff and introduce socially unacceptable demands on the people living in their areas. For example, the service charges introduced in the early eighties have now proved to be socially unjust because some local authorities did not have to introduce them due to their strong commercial rate base. However, other disadvantaged local authorities were forced to impose those charges and increase them as the years went by.
My local authority in Cork city were faced with the choice of either gradually increasing service charges over the years or sacking staff, with the consequent social implications in a city already beset by unemployment. We were forced to increase charges over the years while, at the same time, there were no service charges in Dublin city. At present people in Cork are being jailed because of their failure to pay service charges.
They are getting a new Minister.
The time has come when the Minister should look at the service charges. Unfortunately his response to this issue to date has been pathetic, cold hearted and callous. Despite the promises already well catalogued by previous speakers, his only commitment has been to more of the same. Deputy Gilmore put his finger on it earlier when he read out the commitment given by the Minister for Energy, Deputy Molloy, when he was a member of Fianna Fáil and they were in Opposition, to eliminate service charges. Those people who misled the public at that time have betrayed them again by their U-turn.
The Local Government Bill, 1991, is a major failure and disappointment in that it does not deal with the financing of local authorities. As we speak here today, another protestor against service charges has been jailed in Cork prison. His protest is a political one against the deception of the Fianna Fáil-Progressive Democrats Coalition Government who promised to abolish these charges but never did. Brendan O'Neill, a trade union activitist in Cork, is a political prisoner, a victim of the political deceit brought about by both Government parties in their naked greed for power. The Minister has a responsibility to intercede in what is happening. This so-called reform Bill does not address the problem of the financing of local government. Deputies in their contributions should not try to get away with the statement that it was the Fine Gael-Labour Party who introduced these charges.
Is it not true?
They were introduced by the Fine Gael-Labour Government who were forced to implement them because of the starvation of local authorities as a result of the removal of domestic rates.
Because of legislation brought in by the Coalition Government in 1983. Cut out the nonsense.
The 1977 Manifesto is at the root of this problem. The people who have misled the people into thinking that service charges would be removed have an obligation now to address the problem.
You had four years to deal with it.
Deputy Wallace will have his turn.
Cork Corporation were left with Hobson's choice — the choice of sacking people, reducing services or continuing the service charges. They had very little choice. The local authorities anticipated great powers, greater responsibility and a greater role but instead their role has been further eroded by the advent of the Roads Bill, which will be discussed shortly, and by this Bill. When we are building so few houses why do we need a national building agency who are duplicating the role of local authorities? They have left a legacy in my city of Cork.
This Bill is a cowardly, gutless Bill initiated by a power grabbing Minister. It displays all the marks of the worst type of political chauvinism. It has funked all the major issues relevant to the proper development of local authorities. These issues are, the financing of local authorities and the development of regional authorities with powers. We have fewer powers and local authorities will remain the glorious powerless talking shops they have been in recent years. Bodies which cannot cope with the social problems of their areas such as the development of housing and the upkeep of roads are now powerless to deal with other issues of modern-day living such as the development of adequate education facilities, industry and tourism.
There is no recognition that there must be a link between the local authorities and the Garda in an area. In relation to the role of local authorities in industrial development and tourism we must oppose the way in which the regional authorities are being set up. I understood that regional authorities would have a role in the development of industry and tourism but there is no detail in the Bill on the role of the regional authorities. The IDA have failed the regions, and regional development in this Bill is a total charade.
Unemployment outside of Dublin has increased at a greater rate than in Dublin. We require strong regional authorities responsible for industrial development in their areas. That theme is not developed in the Bill. Local people are better equipped to deal with local problems because of their greater knowledge of local problems but there is no lessening of centralised power in this Bill. The Minister and the Minister for Finance will keep all the powers in Dublin and Dublin will continue to pull the strings. We are the most centralised country in western Europe. We are more akin to an old-fashioned east European state with all the attendant defects and inefficiencies. This has been brought about by the greed of Ministers for political power and their retention of the right to distribute political patronage as they wish.
One of the major recent scandals is the manner in which European Structural Funds are being controlled by the hungry, greedy hands of the Department of Finance. There is strong evidence to suggest that these funds have been distributed in recent years on political expediency rather than on regional needs. This is hard to quantify because the monitoring agencies set up by the Minister for Finance do not have the resources or the expertise to adequately monitor the spending of these moneys. I trust neither the Minister for Finance nor the Minister for the Environment, because the evidence so far on the spending of Structural Funds is worrying. Looking at the 1989 Estimates I am worried at the way lottery funds were distributed from the Department of the Environment to local authorities. It is a slush fund.
We did not burn the midnight oil, anyway.
You burned a lot more.
(Interruptions.)
There were Twenty-six Counties involved anyway.
Yes, but some got more than others depending on where the Ministers were.
(Interruptions.)
Under Schedule 1 of the Book of Estimates in 1989, Mayo for example, got £227,000 for organisations throughout the county, and a city like Cork got £110,000.
There is not a Minister there. You will have to wait for Deputy Dennehy.
We may have to wait for Deputy Dennehy to become a Minister and he may give us a fair shake. Under Schedule B of the same Estimate £500,000 went to County Mayo and I do not begrudge it to them, but Cork city got only £53,000.
(Wexford): They got it for years down there.
How can I, as an Opposition Deputy, have any confidence in a Minister who can distribute funds in a base political, patronising way as these funds are being distributed? The officials in the Department should be responsible for bringing the Minister to heel, to ensure that the money is being distributed properly. I hope that some day there will be a full inquiry into the way in which these funds are being handled by the Department of the Environment. I certainly am not happy.
The Deputy's party would not come too well out of that.
I am not happy. The funds are being used as a slush fund.
(Interruptions.)
These funds are a clear explanation as to why Fianna Fáil stand at 52 per cent in the polls at the moment. They are running around the country with cheques in their pockets to placate the natives.
You could at least give the correct figures.
These are the figures contained in the 1989 Estimates.
There was a sum of £750,000 for Cork last year——
I am being very specific about it. The role of the local authorities in the development of the regional reports was meaningless because the national plan which was supposed to evolve from the regional reports was submitted to Brussels even before the regional reports were submitted to the Department of Finance. The monitoring committees will be ineffective and unable to monitor in a proper manner the distribution of hard won EC Structural Funds for the proper development of the regions.
What is and will be required during the next few years is strong, powerful regional authorities with expanded responsibilities and powers with direct access to Brussels and Europe. Issues could be raised with the decision makers in Europe by these regional authorities so that funding for regional projects could be paid directly to them rather than to central Government. What we got instead in this Local Government Bill is a pathetic pretence at regional development. The Minister should not try to cod the people.
The Deputy will now get all the powers he wants.
Our country has been racked by the haemorrhage of emigration and will be severely injured by the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy and the changes in GATT. Regional areas will continue to decline and it is now more urgent than ever that policies aimed at retaining the population in those areas be properly developed. I regret to say, having regard to the structures set out in the Bill, that the regions outside Dublin will continue to decline.
You will be able to write your own estimate in Cork.
As a result of this Bill the Pale will spread even further. We will have a stronger authority in Dublin and weaker authorities in the regions.
It is a Dublin Government.
I do not intend to deal with each sections in detail as the spokesperson for my party, Deputy Mitchell, has already done this.
(Wexford): He did not do a good job.
Unfortunately, the time available for this debate is also limited. However, I would like to deal with section 4 motions. I am a member of an authority who can hold their heads high when it comes to section 4 motions. They had not been used for some time, but just before the last election they were used in a despicable way for short term political gain and, as a result, a particular party won a seat in my constituency. they have been used in a blatant way in other local authorities also.
It was not the Fianna Fáil Party.
Who was it?
The time has now come for the Minister to meet his responsibilities. There is no point letting the local authorities run riot.
Is the Deputy satisfied with the section now?
This proposal is a step in the right direction but it is not the correct one. We will deal with this matter in more detail on Committee Stage.
The Deputy wants to take away this power?
We will deal with that matter in more detail on Committee Stage. The Minister of State did not go into it in too much detail.
I will.
The time has come to take a look at An Bord Pleanála. Despite the efforts of responsible local authorities, An Bord Pleanála have made some weird decisions in recent years. There is no point the Minister or anyone else in this House washing their hands of some of these decisions or stating that they are an independent body. They should be answerable to somebody. I would ask the Minister and the Minister of State to examine the role of An Bord Pleanála, the delays which are a barrier to development in some areas and some of the weird decisions made by that body who have over-ruled the informed, proper and democratic decisions of responsible local authorities. They have used their position of power and privilege and made some weird decisions.
This is a dangerous Government and Minister and I do not trust them. We intend to fight this Bill. I cannot understand how the party who preached political purity since their establishment, the Progressive Democrats, can go along with the Bill, a Bill which will eliminate the rights of members of local authorities, which attempts to bend the rules and gerrymander electoral areas. How can the apostles of political purity support the Minister and the Government on this Bill? They have lost the respect people had for them. They have accepted the shilling and are marching to the beat of the drum.
The Deputy's party spokesman got it wrong just like the Deputy. They have not studied the Bill.
(Wexford): I welcome the Bill. There has been much whingeing and crying about the amount of time allocated for this debate. At least Fianna Fáil in Government have had the courage to bring forward a Bill to reform local government. During the years different political parties argued that there was a need to reform local government and to bring it into the twentieth century, and given that our society in the nineties is so much different from that of 100 years ago and that each member state of the European Community has tried to reform local government, it was time some Government had the courage to implement radical and major changes. I compliment the Minister for the Environment and the Minister of State, Deputy Connolly, for the work they have put into this Bill.
One must take the hypocrisy of the Fine Gael Party with a grain of salt. Deputy Mitchell finally admitted yesterday that there was a need to reform local government and stated that Fine Gael intend to suggest some wide ranging reforms during the next five to six weeks.
I have a copy of the document here.
(Wexford): However, I must compliment the Labour Party. When it was suggested that an all-party committee be established at least they agreed to participate whereas the Fine Gael Party ran from the idea. I also compliment the Labour Party for producing a wide ranging and very good document. Some of their suggestions and ideas were taken on board by the Minister and included in this Bill. I compliment that party for making their views known to the public. Their members have a deep interest in local government. I await with interest the publication of the Fine Gael document on local government. They obviously did not have the courage to take part in the all-party committee or to face up to some of the unpalatable decisions which might have had to be taken.
I listened with interest to Deputy Allen who referred to section 4 motions. I was a member of the Fianna Fáil committee who examined local government reform. When it was suggested that section 4 motions be abolished, I objected strongly. Just because Dublin Corporation, Dublin County Council or Galway County Council, are abusing this provision is no reason the section should be abolished.
There are county councils such as the one on which I have served for 11 years — and Deputy Yates has been on it for nearly as long — and I cannot recall any section 4 motions in that time, certainly there has been no abuse of section 4. Therefore, I think the Minister is right not to abolish that completely despite pressure from some quarters, and he has come up with a worthwhile compromise, so to speak, that is, that a section 4 motion must be put forward by a certain number of councillors from the area in question and then a certain number of the total council have to support it before it can be passed.
For years I have felt there is a strong need to reform local government. The councillors themselves have not the powers they should have and the county managers have too much power. My county manager might not be too happy to hear me say that, but it seems county managers and the officials have always directed the councils whether at estimates time or any other time of the year. I am baffled to realise that at estimates time we spend hours and days discussing, say, £10,000 or £15,000 and balancing the books, yet six months afterwards the county manager or the officials are able to find £100,000 or £200,000 out of excess revenue to solve some problem that may arise. The presentation of the estimates and the procedures observed are cumbersome and very difficult for an ordinary councillor to follow. The accountancy of a county council should be the same as applies in any firm or business, based on income and expenditure with no miscellaneous items or hidden agenda. A proper accountancy system should be introduced in the local authorities, one that would be easily understood, so that we would know where moneys were spent and if the full amount was not spent for, say, programme 1 or programme 2 the surplus moneys would come back to the council and the councillors would decide where that money would be spent. At the moment there is a good deal of transferring by officials from programme to programme that the councillors are not aware of and that is due to our present auditing system. I am not blaming the auditors but, as somebody said today, they are always four or five years behind in auditing local authority expenditure. Surely you cannot observe proper accounting procedures or ensure everything is above board on such a system. I ask the Minister to look at that.
This is only the first phase of local government reform, the aim being to allow us to proceed with the election to county councils and major boroughs at present. By this time next year we will be discussing far more wide-ranging measures to ensure that we will have elections to the smaller bodies. I was pleased to hear the Minister say at his Press conference last week, and the Taoiseach say last Sunday, that as a result of any reform of local government, we will have in a year or so the same local authorities as we have now or perhaps even a higher standard of local authority.
I support the concept of retaining urban councils. They have played a major role in representing the people of the towns and their environs. I would also like to see town commissioners upgraded to urban council status where the population justifies it. At the moment, town commissioners are merely implementing agents of county councils and seem to have no real teeth or power. I hope that in future towns such as Gorey in County Wexford, for example, will have an urban authority. It is also important that urban councils continue to be rating authorities, otherwise they are only implementing agencies of county concils. I welcome the Minister's commitment during the past week that they will continue to hold their present status and powers.
The provision in the Bill to extend urban boundaries and set up a commission to consider the extension of those boundaries is welcome. As Deputy Yates knows, we have been seeking for many years to have urban boundaries extended in different towns in County Wexford. In Enniscorthy where we come from we have the farce that Enniscorthy Urban Council have built numerous houses, in Gimont Avenue, Moran Park, Slaney View Park, Father Murphy Park, Mile House and other areas, but these houses are in rural sections of Enniscorthy. As a result the people there cannot vote for Deputy Yates or for me or any other member of the council who may have helped them to get housing or have done other work for them.
All directed by me.
(Wexford): The people there are very aggrieved that they are unable to vote for whatever representative they wished to vote for in urban council elections. The Minister is going to do something about that and a section outside the present urban areas is to be designated for urban status. I would like to see any major town thus extended to a radius of perhaps two or three miles. Of course, this can create difficulties for members of county councils and officials if it is to mean they will lose their rating income. However, the Minister should spell out clearly that urban boundaries will be extended and we will not have to spend meeting after meeting year after year discussing this question. Someone told me recently that it took from 1957 to 1987 to extend an urban boundary somewhere in Minister, perhaps Cork. We do not want that system to continue and to have to wait years for an urban boundary extension. Now is the time to do it. The commission should report as quickly as possible and recommend the necessary extensions.
Regional development has been mentioned. To a certain extent I welcome the Minister's proposals to have a regional body, but being regional and big is not always being beautiful. Wexford has been losing out to the rest of the region in relation to regional bodies such as the South Eastern Regional Tourism Organisation and the Southern Health Board. We are being linked into Waterford which is favoured for the headquarters of regional bodies. I cannot for the life of me understand why. I would like to see Wexford selected for some of those headquarters. For example, Kilkenny has the headquarters of the health board but when any Cabinet in the last 15 or 20 years have sat down to talk about regional or subregional structures they seem always to consider Waterford in this context. I ask them to consider Wexford or some county that has not regional status, for the headquarters of the new regional body. Perhaps the Minister of State here, Deputy Connolly, will take that on board. I know he is very committed to that county.
The financing of local authorities has been mentioned. Some of my political colleagues from the county, particularly Fine Gael representatives, have been saying on radio that they did not participate in the all-party committee because finance was not included. That is not exactly true. They wanted the national tax system to be looked at, not just the financing of local authorities. That was one of the reasons they opted out. I am not sure that councillors really want to implement any type of financing regulations. No councillor wants to grasp the nettle of imposing increased water or refuse charges. I include myself in that.
Particularly the Deputy.
(Wexford): It is a red herring to claim that councillors want the right to introduce taxes. They want power, without the unpopularity that goes with it. That is reasonable enough since we are all politicians competing for votes. I am happy that the Minister has taken the first step towards the restructuring of local government. The committee of which I was a member stated quite clearly that we did not want any type of property tax or poll tax to be introduced. We are all aware of what has happened in Britain regarding the poll tax. This country has a high rate of unemployment which brings its own problems if people have to meet extra charges. Working people are paying high taxes already. A property tax or poll tax would further penalise those people. I would rather see better value for the money which is made available to local authorities.
When the Barrington committee looked at the financing of local authorities they found very little wrong with the structure. They questioned the rate support grant and brought in a fiscal committee from London to look at the overall system. The rate support grant was the only problem and the committee have been asked to look for a fairer and more equitabe system of distributing it. I hope that when money is being distributed on a fairer basis Wexford will again benefit. It seems that we have not been getting our share of the rate support grant.
Several speakers have referred to An Bord Pleanála. I am not sure that An Bord Pleanála in their present form are serving any great function. The general public have lost faith in them and I have received many complaints from people who have been awaiting a decision for up to a year. If just one person objects to An Bord Pleanála a development can be held up for a year or more, with consequent loss to the local community. The Minister must look seriously at the operations of An Bord Pleanála with a view to speeding up decisions. Perhaps it should be broken up into regional divisions.
One is enough.
(Wexford): If a person from south Wexford wants to sort out a problem with An Bord Pleanála he or she has to drive to Dubin and possibly wait for hours to be seen. I am not against individuals objecting but some objections are ridiculous, unwarranted and cause severe delays. That view is held on all sides of the House. The Minister might consider how improvements might be made in the system. When politicians telephone An Bord Pleanála nobody there seems to know what is happening.
The Minister mentioned a number of advantages which will accrue to local authorities. I welcome the fact that the chairman of a county council will have an allowance to enable him to operate properly. I should like to see an allowance extended to councillors. Many Deputies would not support that view but I have argued my case at a number of parliamentary party meetings. Councillors should be facilitated by a telephone allowance, a postage allowance, stationery and other expenses incurred in the day-to-day operations by a county councillor, an urban councillor or a town commissioner. Membership of local authorities is becoming more and more the preserve of the well heeled. Ordinary working class people have difficulty in getting time off work and find it practically impossible from a financial point of view to sustain membership of a local authority. In many cases a county councillor has almost as much work as a Deputy. He has to travel all over the electoral area to visit various community groups. I welcome the proliferation of people involved in such groups who are interested in what is happening in their area but it is becoming more and more difficult for councillors to serve them.
Is the Deputy running for the Seanad?
(Wexford): Not for a number of years. Councillors should be able to perform their duties without being out of pocket. Offices should be made available for councillors and they should have rooms in which to hold discussions with people. Wexford County Council have made some efforts in this respect.
I welcome the Bill and compliment the Minister on his initiative and courage in embarking on the first stage of the reform of local government. This has not been done by any previous Government. In 1971 the then Fianna Fáil Government produced a document on local government re-organisation which was priced at 4s.6d.
That was all it was worth.
(Wexford): Times have changed since then and 20 years later we are only setting about reforming local government. Many of the objectives contained in that document were very good and some of them have been included in the Bill. This shows that it was difficult to get any type of agreement even within political parties for the reform of local government because councillors, TDs, and politicians generally, had their own ideas on how local government should be reformed. I welcome the fact that the Minister has set reform in motion. Local government reform, as the Taoiseach said yesterday will go on for the next ten years. In Britain, where their local government system was reformed in recent years, they are now reverting to some of the original ways local authorities were run. They found that some of the structures they set up were too big, too unwieldy. They established regional councils, county councils and district councils. On a visit there last September we found that they were at loggerheads with each other because one authority had a power which another authority considered they should have had. There appeared to be a lot of infighting, disillusionment and dissatisfaction with the tiers operating in England at that time.
I am aware that Mr. Michael Heseltine recently announced he is having another look at local authority reforms. Obviously, it is very difficult to get the right balance to satisfy everybody. I hope the Minister, in his first attempt, has got it right and that this time next year we will see further reforms before the urban council elections.
I compliment the Minister for the Environment, Deputy Flynn, and the Minister of State, Deputy Connolly, for introducing this very welcome and wide ranging reform of local government.
I appreciate that Deputy Browne as a loyal Government backbencher has to put a brave face on this Mickey Mouse Bill and he has done so with great loyalty to his colleagues. However, I have more latitude in outlining what is the real truth behind this Bill. The Bill is a major disappointment and it does not deal with many of the problems that I, as a local councillor since 1979 — both as an urban councillor and a county councillor — am faced with. This Bill does nothing for housing, roads or in relation to giving revenue raising powers to local authorities. It fudges and funks all the major issues of local government, and, therefore, it cannot be taken too seriously. What it does, however, in a sinister way in relation to some of the sections, is to give more power to the Minister in some cases and in other cases tips the balance of ministerial control to a greater extent than exists. We will be opposing the Bill on Second Stage and we regret very much that no meaningful attempt has been made to reform local government.
Since the abolition of domestic rates in 1979 local government has not functioned with real authority. It has been a puppet of central Government. That is true of road building, where they are dependent on road grants from the Department of the Environment and it is true of housing where 100 per cent of the finance is provided by central Government. In those cases it is local government by diktat: local government via the Custom House. In my view the Bill does not change that.
In as small a matter as the changing of speed limits, local government is strangled by having to go to central Government to get approval from both the Department of the Environment and the Garda authorities. On a small issue such as that local authorities cannot be entrusted with extending 30 mile per hour speed limits 50 yards or 100 yards. No effort has been made in the Bill to deal with that and therefore, we cannot say that the Government are seriously committed to reform.
I should like to draw the Minister's attention to Part VI, sections 36 to 40. I am particularly concerned about the sub-committees of councils. A system was set up after the last local elections in 1985, of which the Minister will be aware, whereby there would be a pro rata allocation of places for minority parties. On Wexford County Council there are 21 councillors and Fianna Fáil got 11 seats and, therefore, had the majority. We opted not to give Fianna Fáil total control of all the sub-committees such as the sheep dipping committee, the library committee and so on and my party who had six seats were allowed a pro rata representation. I cannot see under Part VI, where that same pro rata consideration can apply. In other words, an attempt is being made to give dominance to the largest party, Fianna Fáil, in relation to the sub-committees. When summing up on Second Stage perhaps the Minister will confirm whether this is the intention or whether he will support Committee Stage amendments to allow the pro rata system apply to all sub-committees, joint committees and committees set up by councils.
My colleague, Deputy Mitchell, referred to sections 3 and 12 where the Minister has powers both in relation to electoral boundaries and general powers. I am concerned that this is undemocratic and unaccountable. I will put down the marker that on Committee Stage we will be dealing with those provisions in some detail and proposing amendments.
In relation to finance it is my view that unless some method of local revenue is introduced we will not make progress. The only way this can be done in a way that is non-confrontational is that allowances be given through central taxation for any new tax introduced. In other words, a credit should be allowed for local authority tax receipts against income tax liabilities. Unless an imaginative measure is brought forward that allows for local taxation in that way, local authorities will not have the resources to do anything from removing bends to improving local services.
In rural areas one of the biggest issues is roads. We all know that the state of our non-national roads, our county roads, urban and regional roads is a public disgrace. They are a source of derision for tourists and people who are trying to carry on business here. Enormous damage has been done to the transport sector because of our inadequate roads. It is simply a case of inadequate resources being spent. When, as my party's spokesman for roads and transport, I investigated this problem I found that Fianna Fáil introduced a discretionary road grant in 1988. This grant started off at £30 million and this year it is £70 million. The Minister always says he is a great man, the first person to introduce grants specifically for minor roads. Only yesterday, at Question Time, he was bragging again that he had introduced £80 million of grants.
That is not bad.
What he does not tell us about is the other half of the picture. He has so restricted the domestic rates support grant below the level of inflation, below the level of additional costs to local authorities to maintain the roads, that what has happened is that the amount of money spent on county roads is less than was the case in the seventies.
The Deputy must have a very bad local authority in his county.
Local authorities do not have the resources to spend on county roads.
Wexford are allocating more than ever this year.
The Deputy should be permitted to make his speech.
I encouraged the interjection.
We are doing better in Wicklow.
Until we revert to a system whereby the motor tax receipts are dedicated to non-national roads we will not make progress on this issue.
We never had that system.
I look forward in the coming days to suggesting on behalf of my party, a solution to this problem whereby a roads fund would be established in each local authority area which would not allow them to save. I am aware that some local authorities spend as little as £30,000 out of their own resources on county roads.
They would not be allowed to subtract the money they are spending but motor tax receipts would be allowed to go towards ensuring that the necessary resurfacing cycle for roads would be restored from the present level, which on average is every 32 years, to a reasonable level of around nine years. There is no point in going around with scut trucks and jeeps belching smoke putting in a little bit of chippings here and there in the run-up to the local elections as a solution to the problem of potholes. The roads should be resurfaced properly.
Scud missiles.
That is being done in Wexford.
It does not come as any surprise to me that Mr. Gay Byrne and other media celebrities are holding competitions up and down the country to find the largest pothole. I know that the Minister personally intervened to stop further embarrassment in relation to that particular competition. I understand the Minister's need for self preservation. The type of fire brigade action which the Minister referred to, is not appropriate to deal with this problem. There should be a thought-out, planned solution.
It will be news to the Minister's own constituents, if he intervened.
Let me say that I think he intervened in a different county.
The Deputy should talk to the councillors on his own side.
Acting Chairman
Deputy Yates without further interruption.
It is all in good heart.
The fact of the matter is that total receipts from motor taxation, drivers' licences and so on is £160 million. Most local authorities think they would be worse off if they were allowed to keep those receipts instead of getting the road grants, which would be abolished, but what they are forgetting is that the national roads authority will now get the finance for the national primary and secondary routes, which comes to about £160 million. If that is taken from the £240 million and the remainder allowed to go to fund the non-national roads, local authorities would be much better off. Unless we have additional investment of at least 25 per cent in our county roads for a three to four year period to build them up to the previous level, some roads will be lost for all time. This problem must be addressed, but I regret to say there are no proposals in this Bill to provide adequate finance, only a greater and increasing dependency on the goodwill, or lack of it, of central Government to fill potholes. If local authorities are not trusted with that job — and they are not trusted with the extension of speed limits — how can they be taken seriously?
I will now deal with housing. It is important that what I say to the Minister I say to his face and not behind his back. Of all the issues that frustrate the local councillors who were elected in 1985 and where central Government have failed them most, is the provision of local authority housing for those who cannot provide it for themselves. It is simply shameful and negligent that this Government have omitted any reference to housing in this Bill or to give more powers to local authorities to acquire run down houses or more powers to raise revenue to put towards house maintenance, the renovation of old houses or taking them over and renting them, or towards mainline construction of local authority houses. This is at a time when we have particular problems with homelessness, particularly juvenile homelessness, and the growth of over 7 per cent over a ten year period in the elderly population, which is due, thankfully, to increased life expectancy. It is incredible that there is no initiative in this legislation to give more powers and more resources to local authorities to deal with this. There are other issues relating to housing where initiatives could be taken but are neglected. It is a scandal that 6,000 local authority houses do not have bathrooms and toilets. The State is the landlord, yet people are expected to survive without those facilities and there is no reference to this in the Bill.
Two million pounds was spent on them this year which is £2 million more than was invested during the term of the Fine Gael Coalition Government.
The fact of the matter is that——
It is a scandal.
I am glad that Deputy Roche agrees it is a scandal because it is incredible that this situation should pertain in this modern age. If this was happening to the same extent in the private sector there would be an outcry from public representatives from both national and local level.
It was worse when your side were in power.
I can say with some degree of fair play that this Government and its predecessor has been in power since 1987 and it is nearly time they discontinued the long-playing record of blaming the former Fine Gael-Labour Coalition for all their current difficulties and reflected instead on housing conditions when they handed over government in the early eighties.
Let them accept responsibility.
I wish to make some specific proposals on housing for the elderly. There are cases of elderly people, an elderly widow or an elderly bachelor, living on their own; perhaps they own their house, it could have been a vested council house which has been bought out, but it has no facilities. They cannot get help from the council to provide such facilities. The Minister should have introduced a scheme whereby the local authority could buy the house and refurbish it and give it to them rent free for the rest of their lives but when the elderly person passed on the house would revert to the local authority who could allocate it to some other elderly person. Local government needs to be changed from a system of administration into a system of creative management. That is not happening. There is nothing in the Bill about housing initiatives for the elderly or anything else that would inspire confidence in what is being attempted.
Planning has always been a controversial area. The performance of the Fianna Fáil councillors in Dublin on rezoning is very regrettable and gives planning a bad name. Deputy Browne, my constituency colleague, rightly said that the record of all parties in Wexford is exemplary on the non use of section 4's. In the one case of a section 4 decision, the manager appealed it to An Bord Pleanála and won. A hard look at the issue of rezoning and other planning issues is needed. In my own county these matters are dealt with by using section 29 (d) whereby particular cases can be rezoned with the agreement of the local authority officials. I think that is the best way to proceed. However when section 4 is used at least five councillors should be required to sponsor the motion, two of whom must be from the electoral district to which the decision relates, and a two-thirds majority being required. There should be a facility in terms of local democracy where by a petition people could lodge to have that decision reconsidered. There should also be a cooling off period whereby the county manager would be afforded the opportunity to make an interior report. Unless we have a thought-out position which allows limited use of section 4 to give people the opportunity to have their say, we will not be serving local democracy well.
An Bord Pleanála have had planning scandals and has been proved disreputable in different cases. I have found that An Bord Pleanála are totally unaccountable, undemocratic and lacking in any transparency. If you ring An Bord Pleanála about a particular case you will be told fairly curtly that they do not know when they will have a decision or when an inspection will be carried out. If you press further and ask as politely as you can if the inspection will be made or a decision reached within six months or by Christmas, or Easter, they will answer that they could not possibly say. That is no way for anyone to do business. I believe a legal time limit should be set whereby only in the most grave and complex circumstances could an appeal go beyond six months and whereby all issues shall be determined within that period.
I would go further and say that there should be a facility whereby local councils, either unanimously or by a four-fifths majority, could overturn decisions of An Bord Pleanála. I am not satisfied that the board are final arbiters in all matters, and there should be some facility whereby unanimity would apply either in conjunction with the management or the members but whereby An Bord Pleanála would not have the final exclusive say in all cases. The present position is unsatisfactory in terms of vexatious appeals to deliberately hold up the system, the slowness with which the board operate, and the fact that the board are completely unaccountable in the final analysis. I am not satisfied, because what was set up to be independent and fair has turned out to be slow, cumbersome, and lacking in any semblance of democracy or accountability.
I now wish to turn to Dublin and give my views in relation to reform. I shall not go into the nitty-gritty of the matter, other than to say that in my view one of the biggest problems for the people of Dublin and in the land use of Dublin is the transport problem. We all know that whether one comes from the north, the south, or the west side of Dublin, it is taking longer to get to work each morning. On the inner city cordon 55,000 cars enter each morning, carrying some 76,000 people. Ireland has one of the lowest levels of car ownership per capita in Europe, so all the indications are that the number of cars will increase in Dublin and throughout the rest of the country. In total there are, I think, 800,000 cars in Ireland. There is a crying need for a Dublin transport authority to plan to resolve Dublin's congestion problems over a period. Traffic flows are down to slower than ten miles an hour during morning and evening peak rush-hours.
That position is unacceptable, but it will get worse. There are no plans in place to resolve the problem. Dublin will come to a standstill unless there is planning to resolve the problem. More businesses and more leisure centres will move out of the centre of the city and relocate. The population of inner city Dublin is dwindling — that is a known fact — and that needs to be reversed. It is seriously remiss in any local government reform to make no reference to the establishment of a Dublin transport authority. There should be a concerted improvement in public transport. In my view that should be based on a lifeline system, a mass transport system, whereby the city can build on the successful proven track record of the DART system. If one considers the DART corridors from Greystones into the city and from Howth into the city one realises that more than 50 per cent of the people who go to work from those areas do so by use of public transport. Seven thousand people leave their cars at home. The DART system works; it is predictable. Buses account for only 25 per cent of public transport on other routes — in other words, on the non-DART corridors — for people going to work. On non-DART corridor routes only a quarter go to work by public transport whereas more than half go to work by public transport on the DART corridors. Buses get caught up in the same traffic jams and the same congestion as do cars. Therefore, people ask what is the point of taking a bus — they might as well take their cars and have door to door service.
The solution to the problem will cost money. It may cost £300 million to £400 million. There may be eligibility for EC support. There has to be concerted action to move away from the situation whereby Dublin Corporation have responsibility for the eastern by-pass; The Dublin Port and Docks Board talk about their particular problems of port access; the Garda deal with law enforcement; the Department of the Marine have responsibility for Dún Laoghaire port, and the Department of Transport are responsible for one company, Irish Rail, through DART, and another company through Dublin Bus. With such scattered, disparate planning and thinking, is it any wonder that there is such a mess? Until such time as the Dublin transport authority is reconstituted as was originally established in a Bill in the House in 1985, there will be no progress. I appeal to the Government to take Dublin's transport problems seriously. In my view, they are the biggest transport problems facing this country and need to be addressed urgently.
A minor point I should like to take up with the Minister of State is that there is no reference in the Bill to the work of the archives services. I am sure all Deputies would have received representation from the Society of Archivists in the Irish sector. They wish to have the archives service set up on a statutory basis as part of any local government reform. That would give the service the opportunity to develop. Information is now held on floppy discs, on manuscripts, and on other files, that in years to come will be invaluable in terms of the history of local government and so on. Unless there is now a conscious policy decision to legal and statutorily protect that information it could well be neglected in the future.
I now turn to what I consider to be the most serious aspect of local government reform in so far as it concerns the Government's hidden agenda. That relates to the non-holding of urban council and municipal elections — urban councils, some of the corporations, and the town commissioners. No good reason has been advanced for not holding those elections. I am not too young that I do not have some cynical thoughts, and I am well aware — from the Presidential election and from other elections — that the largest party in the Government have done consistently badly in relation to floating urban votes. The measure is a deliberately cynical attempt to minimise the turn-out in city areas and maximise the party's traditional vote in rural areas. That is shameful.
That is only step 1. Step 2 is the abolition of urban councils and town commissioners where possible. I am completely opposed to the deferring of those elections and to the abolition of those councils. The councils have stood the test of time. I come from Enniscorthy Urban District Council myself. I was first elected to that council in 1979. If Ireland follows the British example and sets up district councils covering wider regions, the smaller provincial towns will be submerged in wider district councils. Their identity will be lost. What has happened in small provincial towns is that municipal authorities have acted as focal points in protecting and developing the towns. Whether by seeking a tourist office or a FÁS office, whether by making representation about the downgrading of a head post office, or whatever it might be, the urban council has been a democratic forum to which the local community could make representation. The urban council can in turn be a voice for those people. The Minister of State knows that much of his time has been taken up by deputations from people on urban councils. He has been gracious enough to receive many of them and to invest much of his time in them, the outcome of which I shall talk about at another time.
The Deputy did not fare too badly.
Well, we could do with a few more pounds for housing, as the Minister of State says himself. He has left housing short on a few occasions, and we are getting a little impatient. I shall come back to that matter another day.
The point I make is that provincial towns are already losing out in relation to commercial development. Most businesses of a large size are now deciding to go to the larger regional centres such as Cork, Limerick, Waterford, Galway and Sligo. They might go one slight tier below those larger centres, but the provincial towns are losing out. Arklow is an instance of a town that is losing out very heavily, whereas I would be very confident about the future of Bray. Those areas will be extinguished if their focal point and engine for development, namely, the urban councils, is submerged. These councils have served us well for over 140 years, going back to the British times. They have been efficient units of administration and it would be totally wrong and undemocratic to abolish them. What will happen when these elections are over? The Government will say:"The urban councillors were elected in 1985; the system is very undemocratic; they do not have a mandate whereas the new councillors who will be elected will have a mandate". The Government will set up district councils and bodies, but that will be the rock on which local government will perish, and I will do everything possible to resist it. There is no way that the problems of rural areas at present represented by county councils can be uniformly dealt with by a homogeneous product of a district council. This has been tried in Britain but has proved to be a failure. For example, the people on Enniscorthy Urban District Council do not care who is on Wexford County Council but they care a lot about who is on Enniscorthy Urban District Council.
If the Government even back-track and hold the urban council elections next year it will be a mistake in so far as that the two elections should be held together. There is an overlapping of issues. I feel very strongly that the hidden agenda of this legislation is the abolition of urban councils. I would say bluntly that the Minister, Deputy Bobby Molloy, has a record, going back 20 years when he was Minister for the Environment in a previous Fianna Fáil Government, of wanting to abolish urban councils. I see his dark hand in this legislation and I will do all in my power to ensure that my party resist it. I know there are many Members of this House who have never been on an urban council, have no affinity for them and have little understanding of them. It would be a very retrograde step to abolish councils that have stood the test of time and have not only performed well in terms of governing locally but have provided a basis on which other State agencies can be lobbied.
There are some good measures in the legislation but it is not a major piece of legislation. It has no new initiatives in relation to extra revenue-raising at local authority level. It does not develop urban and municipal councils in the way I would like to see them developed. It does nothing to establish a roads fund to deal with non-national roads. It has no new housing initiatives and there is nothing that would ensure creative management as opposed to the system of public administration that exists. Therefore it fails the test. It is fairly innocuous apart from some of the insidious provisions in relation to joint committees of councils. Therefore we will be opposing the Bill as a failed and botched attempt at serious local government reform.
First I would like to take up a couple of the points dealt with by Deputy Yates. Secret agenda are always very attractive in politics. They are like conspiracy theories. They can never be proved to be wrong and you do not have to produce a scintilla of evidence that they are right. You can make all sorts of assertions about hidden agenda, but the reality is that there are logical reasons that the two elections will be held separately, and that has been made clear already. The concern which has been voiced by Deputy Yates is little more than scare-mongering. There is a reality which Deputy Yates and his party seem to have ignored, a reality that members of other parties have been aware of for the last 20 or 25 years, that is, that there are great suburban masses around even the smallest of our urban towns but many urban district councils represent areas only at the centre of influence of their towns. Clearly some alternative system to bring the hinterland — not the rural part of the county — under the control of a democratically elected institution is well worth considering. However, that is an issue for another day. I would simply make the point that the hidden agenda is always attractive because you can deal with innuendo rather than with facts.
The second point Deputy Yates raised was about bathrooms, and I agree with him in this regard. The issue of bathrooms is quite extraordinary. It is nothing short of a national scandal that there are houses in this State owned by public housing authorities which do not have the fundamental aspects of civilised living. That is a scandal, and it is a scandal that Deputy Yates' party did nothing about this when they were in power. We are, albeit a little later than we should, doing something about this. Two million pounds has been provided this year in the social housing programme for the provision of bathrooms, and that is only an initial allocation. I am very pleased to put on the record that a substantial amount of that sum is going to County Wicklow. Almost £100,000 is going to the town of Bray and £30,000 to Arklow. I commend the Minister for his good sense and I thank him for providing that money for County Wicklow. I will be asking him for twice that amount next year and I will be making a lot of noise if I do not get it. The Minister and the House will be pleased to learn that we have already started in Bray to put the bathrooms in place. A number of contractors have been lined up, houses have been surveyed, contracts have been signed and I understand that building will commence before the end of this month, certainly before 26 June.
Deputy Yates also referred to repairs to houses owned by old age pensioners. It made me scratch my head and wonder if Deputy Yates ever reads his post. Again in the social housing programme there is an extraordinary initiative in this area, as there is in other areas of housing. Deputy Yates seems to be a little confused about the appropriate way to deal with these matters.
Any houses that have been built were built when we were in office. Not one house has been built in the last three years.
As the Deputy from Dublin should be aware, building mass housing estates is not the appropriate way to deal with the issue. However, I will come back to the housing issue.
There are 8,000 people looking for housing from Dublin Corporation.
I want to deal now with the Bill in its historic context. The foundations of the Bill go back a long way.
Acting Chairman
Do not go back too far.
I will go back as far as needs be. You need not worry about that. I will go back just as far as it takes to prove how extraordinary the hypocritical comments from Fine Gael have been. It was bizarre in the extreme for Deputy John Bruton, Leader of Fine Gael, to suggest yesterday that there is no urgency surrounding the issue of local government reform. He said it is not a matter that requires precipitate action, that we could take another 30 years to deal with it.
The issue of local government has been the subject of discussion, reports, documents and studies for well over 30 years. Concern about the local government system goes back to the early days of the sixties. At that time two reports were produced by the Economic and Social Research Institute governing the problems which existed even then with local government funding and the relationship between funding and the structures of local government. Following presentation of those two reports in the Department of Finance the Department did what Departments of Finance all over the world do, they appointed an inter-departmental committee. Throughout the sixties this very fine body of persons dealt with the whole issue of local government finance and taxation. No fewer than five separate reports were produced by that committee, some of them excellent reports.
An early report dealt with the whole issue of rates and the rating system. There was a report dealing with the valuation system and another dealing with the importance and impact of exemptions and remissions on rates and also with the alternative systems of local finance and taxation. There was even a report on the agricultural grant and a final report was produced on the grants system and the way money was delivered from central Government to local government. Three of these inter-departmental reports were so good that the Department of Finance took the unusual step of publishing them. They handed them out to the politicians of the day and to the public to read. Two of the reports were circulated internally within the Civil Service but were never released to the public.
As the sixties progressed and as we stood on the threshold of a new decade, a number of factors began to focus more and more attention on the organisational as well as the financial aspects of local government. These factors included demographic change, notably the growth of Dublin and the depopulation of towns in rural Ireland. Technologial change, in particular change in communications and transportation systems, was a second factor, the growing public interest in participation and in people democracy was a third factor.
In 1971 and 1972 two further important documents dealing with the whole area of local government were published. The first of these, published in 1971, was a Government White Paper on the Reorganisation of Local Government which dealt with the whole issue of the organisation, structures and functions of local government. It was not one of the best White Papers ever published but it did address the issues which were felt at that time to be foremost in terms of organisation and structure. The White Paper on local government reorganisation was comprehensive, tedious in some parts, odd in its language, but comprehensive.
The first part of the White Paper examined the system of local government as it then operated, looked at the historical basis of local government and what has changed since the foundation of the State. It was a little short on analysis; it did not look at our history in local government since the foundation of the State. We have systematically stripped local government, demolished small local authorities, systematically centralised local government and systematically removed it from its sphere of influence and relevance. For all its faults, the White Paper on local government looked at the system of local government as it was going into the seventies. It looked at the purpose of local government, its statutory provisions and its relationship with central government. It also looked at the functions of the local authorities.
The White Paper also looked at the functions of local authorities, the objectives of local authorities, reorganisation, including basic issues such as the optimum size of local government units, multi-purpose authorities and the general operations of the system. Possible patterns of local government, including regional authorities and town hinterland authorities, were discussed and that is why I am surprised at the contribution of Deputy Yates who seems to think that the idea of a district other than simply the urban council is a new one. It is an issue which has been discussed in local government for 30 years.
The county structures and the changes needed in them, in particular the out-of-date boundaries, and the whole idea of the regions were dealt with in the White Paper. It also dealt with the Dublin area, other large towns, the Gaeltacht and a number of other statutory bodies. The first two parts of the local government White Paper, 1971, dealt fairly comprehensively — although I would find some fault with it — with the structure of local government which existed then and which is still our structure today.
The third part of the White Paper — in many ways the most important part — dealt with a whole series of issues which still need to be dealt with today. It dealt with the issue of controls on local government by central Government. It really is quite extraordinary when you try to list the number of different types of controls on local government. One of the members of the Radcliffe-Maud report committee visited Ireland while the report was being produced and came to the conclusion that, without any shred of doubt, local government was more centrally controlled in Ireland than anywhere else. That is why I think that some of the criticisms hurled at this Bill are perverse because, at the very heart of the Bill, is the stripping away of some of the most central and pernicious control mechanisms that exist.
The question of the restatement of the powers of local authorities in a positive way, as opposed to the ultra vires doctrine was dealt with in Part III of the White Paper of 1971 and it is dealt with again — for the first time in statute — in this Bill. Surely anybody who is interested in local government and who has a shred of generosity would recognise that that is a very welcome and central element in the Bill? The question of the restatement of the powers of local authorities in a positive way, as opposed to the negative way that the local authority powers were stated, was dealt with in the 1971 White Paper and legislative change was promised then. The constitution, membership and the procedures governing the local authorities were dealt with and, finally, under this heading it looked at the staffing, the question of modernisation, the whole audit system and its oddities and the question of centalised services, in particular the provision of centralised computing services.
All that was dealt with in 1971 in a White Paper and it is a scandal that in 1991 the Leader of the Opposition suggests that there is no need to hurry in relation to any of this. He seems to think that we can dawdle for another 20 or 30 years. As Mr. Tom Barrington said, one of the problems with local government is that it is like an ancient monument, nobody is willing to demolish it but we are quite prepared to stand by and let it fall asunder, piece by piece. If we follow Deputy John Bruton's advice that is precisely what we will be doing with local authorities: we will betray the very thing which many Members regard as not just a central point in political life but an important point in how the State and the public relate to one another.
Acting Chairman
I have given you latitude to discuss the history of local government but I must ask you to speak to the Bill.
I am addressing the Bill.
Acting Chairman
You have not yet come to the Bill.
With respect to the Chair——
Acting Chairman
You have spoken for ten minutes and have not yet addressed the Bill. You must speak to the Bill, to its contents or to something which you feel should be in the Bill.
I was referring to functions, structures and operations. I have been pointing out that while it is very timely that this Bill at long last introduces changes in these areas, I have not discussed — as Deputy Yates did — in an amusing way — the issue of potholes; nor have I discussed a whole range of other issues.
Potholes are an issue.
Not in the Bill. The White Paper concluded that all institutions must change. That was 20 years ago and the point I am making now is that if a change was needed 20 years ago in these central aspects of local government, how much greater is the need for these changes now?
Acting Chairman
You have established that.
A series of changes were proposed at that time which have still not occurred and they are needed now. At that time changes were listed as being vital in the area of the functions of local authorities. What is the appropriate function for a local authority and what level of local authority should fulfil those functions? If changes in the structures of the local authorities were suggested as being vital then, how much more vital are those changes at this stage?
Changes in the operation of local authorities and questions about the capacity of local authorities to operate effectively and efficiently were raised then and those questions are still with us today. Indeed, they are more pertinent now, 20 years later, than they were then. The conclusions in the White Paper were fairly low key. We do not need to be dramatic about the changes needed in functions, structure and operations to make local government more relevant. The reality is that, apart from changes taking place in the health boards and road authorities, nothing really fundamental was suggested in 1971.
The White Paper, however, suggested that consideration should be given to deciding which functions are appropriate to local government and which functions are appropriate to central Government. In that way they could decide in regard to functions currently operated by local authorities, particularly councils, for example, the provision of houses, which should be paid for by central Government and which should come from the coffers of local government. That is still an issue today. The other suggestion was that the local authorities should be regarded as development corporations and that this role should be enhanced. That suggestion was made in no less than five separate reports since 1971 and we still have not seen it.
Under the heading "structures" the White Paper came up with quite controversial proposals. I will mention some of them because I want to illustrate the continuity of need which has existed for 20 years and the fact that we are still scratching the surface and no more. To hear anybody describing this Bill as being in some way a threat to local democracy when all it does is to push, in a fairly tentative way, along a path which was outlined 20 years ago, is incomprehensible. The system of local government, it was suggested at that time, would be based mainly on counties. In fact, one of the features of that White Paper was that it continuously equated large with efficient. I would contend that large does not necessarily mean efficient and that one of the things we should be doing — the Minister is moving in this direction in the Bill — is moving towards the concept of multiple tiers or several different layers of local government.
It was suggested in the White Paper, too, that regions should have an important place in any re-organised system of local government. The Minister has suggested precisely that in the Bill and is moving in that direction in a statutory way for the first time. Also suggested was the setting up of a single authority with jurisdiction over the entire Dublin region. As the Acting Chairman who comes from Dublin will be fully aware, the concept of a metropolitan authority for Dublin would not be accepted by any of us nowadays.
It was proposed that town commissioners should be abolished and that it would be appropriate to transfer many of their functions to urban councils or county councils. New forms of towns and local bodies were also proposed. It was suggested that special arrangements for co-ordination were needed at that time in Cork, Limerick and Waterford. In the case of ordinary communities it was suggested that some form of grassroots level local government change needed to take place. It was also suggested that we needed to create a system whereby area committees who would normally be based in towns and their hinterlands could involve voluntary bodies and bring people from residents' associations into local government. That is a very good idea and I cannot understand why 20 years later we have not moved in that direction.
That White Paper suggested, too, that several harbour authorities in the case of smaller harbours should be abolished and their functions taken over by central Government. That is a recurring theme in local government reform documents.
Under the heading "Operations", it was suggested in the White Paper that it should be the objective of the Government to allow local authorities the greatest possible discretion in the exercise of their powers and to concentrate central controls on key points only. The Minister has returned to that philosophy in the Bill. It was suggested that it would be an important change to restate in broad terms the permissive powers of local authorities. We should remember that this was recommended in Chapter 14 of the White Paper which was issued 20 years ago and that we are still only talking about doing this. It was also suggested that the laws relating to the constitutions, membership and procedures of local authorities needed to be modernised and simplified. I will not go any further.
The point I am making is that many of the measures the Minister is now starting to put into place in 1991 were proposed as far back as 1971. How can any serious politician come into this House and suggest that this is precipitous action? How can the leader of a party stand up here and suggest that we need another couple of years to discuss these issues?
He knows that this Bill does nothing to address these issues.
The White Paper also referred to a separate White Paper on the issue of finance, an issue which was dealt with in some detail by the previous speaker. In fact, a White Paper on the issue of local government was published in 1971. I know it will embarrass some of the Deputies on the benches opposite to hear that that White Paper was well balanced but it was not without faults. No White Paper ever produced by any Government in this State has been without faults. However, that White Paper was absolutely savaged by Fine Gael when it was published in 1972. They put the boot in and were destructive in the extreme. We all inherited the consequences of that destruction. However, Fine Gael were closest to inheriting those consequences because when they came into Government in 1973 they were faced——
Acting Chairman
Will the Deputy please relate what he is saying to the Bill before us?
I am attempting to do that.
Acting Chairman
I find it hard to follow what the Deputy is saying.
I will speak slower then. I would point out to the Chair that other speakers were allowed to range fairly wide of the mark in this debate. I am dealing with the issue of local government reform. I do not wish to sound impudent but I am the only speaker who has dealt entirely with the issue of local government reform. I am putting this in context and I beg the indulgence of the Chair to allow me to do that. We cannot resolve the issue of local government reform in a day, a week or a year; local government reform is an ongoing issue. It is organic and it has to be given time to grow and develop. I, too, have to be given a little time to grow and to develop my points.
After it was published in 1971 that White Paper was circulated to local authorities for discussion. Work progressed on the White Paper on finance and it was published in 1972 against a growing crisis in local government at that time. Members of this House will well remember 1972 when Dublin Corporation were abolished for not setting an adequate rate and the corporation in Bray suffered the same fate shortly afterwards. Local councillors from all political parties in those local authorities were saying at that time that reform of local government was needed urgently. How can anyone come into this House, 20 years later, and suggest that this is not an urgent matter now? As I was saying, even as the White Paper on finance was being published in 1972 two local authorities, Dublin Corporation and Bray UDC, were moving towards dissolution. In both cases commissions were set up to replace the local authorities. I think most people would accept that those were tragic years for those two authorities. That was certainly the case in the town of Bray and I know from experience that it was the case also in Dublin City.
The drafters of the White Paper on finance had the benefit of five reports from the inter-departmental committee on finance and taxation. They also had the benefit of two ESRI reports. As a consequence, perhaps its recommendations are far more comprehensive and detailed than the recommendations on re-organisation. The main recommendations continue to make interesting reading even to this very day. I have absolutely no doubt that the recommendations which were incorporated in the 1972 White Paper, imperfect though some of them were, could be dusted off and introduced even today. Obviously many of the recommendations would need to be refined but if they could be approached now on an all-party basis and in a non-partisan way they would go a long way towards solving the core problems which are bedeviling local government at present. These recommendations were not refined and they, like the White Paper on reorganisation, became a political football in the run-up to the 1973 general election. Fine Gael and, to a lesser extent, Labour, bear the responsibility for what happened next.
The White Paper on finance contained over 40 major recommendations and conclusions. It is difficult to capture in summary form the findings of that White Paper but it is worth trying to do so. The paper concluded, and I quote: "It is essential that local government should have power to levy local taxes and that such taxes should be capable of meeting a significant proportion of local expenditure". The White Paper went on to deal critically with the valuation system at the core of the problem of local finance. It suggested that the existing valuation system be reformed urgently. It went on to discuss the arrangements for the transfer of responsibility of functions from the Minister for Finance to the then Minister for Local Government. It suggested that the Minister for Local Government should prepare a series of measures for practical reform of the valuation system with provision for bringing valuations ultimately up to full current values. As Members of the House will remember, the valuation system was effectively negated in 1978 when we "abolished" the rates. However, the same valuation system continued to operate up to very recent times in the case of agricultural land when it was struck down as unconstitutional. That is a measure of just how out of line with reality the valuation system was.
The system of remissions and exemptions was also highly criticised. The paper concluded that the existing provisions should be repealed and replaced by a modern code. It suggested that rate reliefs, new grant house reliefs and a variety of other reliefs should be either abolished or limited. It argued for the phasing out of a whole series of exemptions. It also argued that the State should be treated for rating or local government revenue purposes like any other property owner. What is the current importance of those suggestions? The current importance is that had we listened to those suggestions in 1971 the hiatus which has bedevilled local government and central Government throughout the seventies and which caused a problem from the very early days of the Fine Gael-Labour Coalition Government of 1973——
What about 1977?
I am coming to that. I thought the Deputy would have put it in an historical context. He may regret raising the issue. I will deal with the Cabinet meeting in 1976 and what was said at that meeting about rates.
The Fianna Fáil manifesto.
I am not trying to make a partisan point. These issues should have been dealt with at that time and all of the parties here bear a responsibility for not dealing with them. When Fine Gael were in power we put the boot in, and when we are in power they put the boot in and so on. That does not rebound to the credit of any of us. We all come here and beat our breasts about the importance of local government but when it comes to doing something practical we can never get away from our capacity to put the boot into each other. That is the curse of politics. It is a pity we lost two decades and none of us can say that the other party bears all the responsibility. We are all responsible. Let us learn from our mistakes and go forward from here.
Legal arrangements to allow local authorities introduce a waiver system were suggested as far back as 1971. These systems would have helped to humanise rates and create interim measures which would have allowed us to overcome them. They were subsequently introduced when the service charges came in in 1985. Chapter nine of the White Paper dealt with the expansion of autonomous local sources of local finance. When Deputy Yates referred to local finance I was surprised he did not refer to this or to the fine papers produced by the inter-departmental committee, or to NESC Report No. 80, or to the Copeland-Walshe report, or any of the reports that dealt with the issue of finance.
Chapter nine of the White Paper of 1972 dealt with the expansion of autonomous sources of local finance. In general it proposed that the maximum possible amount of revenue should be derived from a variety of local authority charges for services, professional fees and other non-tax sources. This proposal was based on the good principle that those who can be identified as drawing direct benefit from any service should carry at least a portion of the cost of that service, rather than the whole cost of that service being borne by the taxpayers in general. Specific recommendations included the maximum possible amount of revenue being derived from local authority service charges and from fees for professional services. It suggested that a critical review of the level of existing charges by local authorities should be carried out on an on-going basis. It suggested that local authorities be given a general power to charge for services and to undertake trading services ancillary to their normal functions. We had an interesting example of this happening recently in Wicklow where the county council and a private developer used the services of the labour personnel of the building service of Wicklow County Council to build expensive private houses on sites owned by the council. That was very imaginative. It is a pity we have not tried to use our imagination a little more in local government, because even within the constraints of existing local government law we can push the frontiers out. The provisions in the Bill will assist local authorities push the frontiers out faster.
Steps were to be taken to ensure that the subsidies from rates for particular services would be visible. In other words, if a company were getting a specific subsidy it would be made transparent somewhere in the accounts so that people could judge whether or not they were getting value for the money they were foregoing. Local authorities were to be required to review their level of charges at regular intervals. The White Paper also suggested that local authorities be required to make economic charges for water and sewerage schemes. It was not a new idea that came up in 1983. The idea had been around for some time.
The White Paper suggested a variety of other charges. Those proposals were vigorously rejected at that time by the Opposition parties. I mention the vigour with which Fine Gael attacked those proposals because in 1983 we were accused of being nihilistic and destructive when we made political play out of the same point that Fine Gael had made in 1972. The same party revised those proposals less than 15 years later as an interim measure pending the long term resolution of the local government funding issue. That is what was done in 1983 and is what was always done with local government, longfingering the issue.
Chapter ten of the White Paper dealt with another controversial issue — the question of central Government grants to local government. What was said then is just as relevant today when talking about reform. The Minister's Bill is only phase one of the first chapter of a series of reforms needed in local government. Chapter ten concluded that the existing system was unsatisfactory, recommended that the system of grants be simplified and that dependence on grants should be reduced by expanding local government finances on the one hand and by converting the grant to a block grant and giving local authorities more autonomy. That was 20 years ago. Any member of a local authority would endorse those sentiments now.
Alternative taxation systems, including a poll tax, were examined in the White Paper and rejected out of hand. Local income tax, a local sales tax and site valuations were also examined and dismissed. The chapter concluded that the Government had been forced to the conclusion that in the circumstances it was not possible to provide supplementary sources of local taxation suitable from a local and national point of view and which would provide substantial revenue in all areas.
The great problem for anyone interested in local government is that people talk about the need to reform local government finance. When I hear fellow councillors talking about the need to reform local finance I ask them what they mean by it and they invariably mean that the Government should give more money to the local authorities. That would not be a reform but simply pushing more opium into the system. Reform is about thinking of ways to get back to where local authorities can stand on their own feet and be, to a greater extent than they are today, independent of central Government. The worst thing that ever happened here is that we created a system which separated the concept of spending money at local government level from the necessity to raise funds. The clowns in Dáil Éireann can raise the funds by raising taxes and people with no responsibility feel they can spent it. That is not local government. The essence of local government is that there is a direct and specific relationship between the provision of services and the funds for those services. Those who suggest that reform can avoid that are deluding themselves.
The balance of the White Paper of 1972 dealt broadly with the efficiency issues and the means of limiting the burden of local finance on local taxpayers. Proposals included the examination of the functions in order to distinguish between which functions were local and which were central so as to establish clearly the functions which should be the subject of grants and those which should be funded entirely from local charges. Improvements in accounting and audit were proposed as was a move to programme budgeting. Measures to improve the capacity of local elected representatives to exercise financial control of local authorities were also proposed.
As I suggested what is absolutely vital is an efficiency audit outside of individual local authorities. We should have a group of efficiency auditors who could be called into play by the elected representatives. I am not happy with the way some cases are dealt in my local authority but I do not have the time or the professional competence to disentangle the myriad of accounts with which I am presented in response to questions. Councillors on other councils have this problem. I hope the Minister will seek in the not too distant future — this would not require legislation — to appoint an efficiency audit group who can be called into play by the elected representatives to ensure that we have efficiency and effectiveness and that the taxpayers get £1 worth of value for every pound spent in local government.
Debate adjourned.