I remember being at a residents' meeting some time ago and I am sure many Members will have shared this experience. An issue arose and the council members explained to the residents that we did not really have any decision in the matter because the decision was made by the county manager. One resident got up and said very forcibly that he elected us and not the county manager or the town clerk. The public find it very difficult to understand the division of functions between the reserved functions of elected members and the executive functions of management. Very often the public are frustrated that the people they have elected, and those whom they will elect on 27 June, cannot make the decision on a whole range of matters because these decisions are effectively made by the manager. I make that point because I fear subsection (8) will compound that problem because not only do we have the reserved functions of the council, the executive functions of the manager, we will now have an additional set of functions, the "do as you are told functions" which are being conferred under this section and where the Minister can direct the county manager to do something and the county manager will have to do it and will have the full authority of the Bill.
I would like to give some examples where I believe this will cause problems. A couple of years ago a well publicised situation arose in the Dublin County Council area following a Supreme Court decision which awarded £2 million planning compensation to a developer called Brennan and McGowan for Grange Developments. The county council were outraged that the ratepayers of County Dublin and taxpayers generally would have to pay out £2 million of public funds for a developer who had left many housing estates unfinished all over County Dublin and had one of the worst records anywhere in the country for unfinished housing estates, yet their claim for £2 million would have to be paid. The county council took a decision at a council meeting to instruct the manager not to pay it. It appeared for a day or so that the manager was going to comply with that decision, but then he was summoned by the Minister to the Custom House and was told to pay it. Many of us were very critical of the manager at that time for having complied with the Minister's wishes. If this Bill had been in place, the Minister would have issued a directive and the manager would have had to comply with it.
The question this subsection raises is who will be directing the manager. We have the problem already that managers tend to act very much independently of the elected members in many cases. Elected members may want to give a direction, the Minister may give a conflicting direction. How does this square with section 4 of the City and County Management (Amendment) Act, 1955?
Leaving aside the planning decisions let us use the example of a local authority passing a resolution under section 4 of the City and County Management (Amendment) Act giving a direction to a county manager to, for example, provide a travellers' halting site in a particular location. If the Minister issues a direction under this section which conflicts with the direction of the council and directs the manager to put the halting site somewhere else, which direction will the manager have to comply with? Will he have to comply with the direction he has been given by the elected members of his council or the direction given by the Minister? There is a conflict here which is not reconciled anywhere in the Bill. As I understand the section, no matter what the council may decide or what the wishes of a manager may be, the Minister can give a direction to the manager.
In a recent case involving Dublin County Council there was a conflict between the elected members of the council and the manager over a temporary travellers' halting site in Mulhuddart where the manager wanted to proceed in one direction and the council wanted to proceed in a different direction. Will the Minister be able to give a direction to a manager in those circumstances? Conflict also arose recently in Cork over the jailing of householders for the non-payment of water charges. The manager decided to look for committal orders against a number of householders who had not paid water charges and the council, as I understand it, pursuant to section 4 of the City and County Management (Amendment) Act passed a motion directing the manager not to pursue that line of action. The manager ignored that motion. I understand there is considerable question as to whether the manager was correct in ignoring the direction of the council in that case.
Under this section the Minister can give a direction to managers. What will happen if the Minister gives a direction to a manager which is in direct conflict with the direction he has received from the elected council? The Minister should explain this point which I regard as a recipe for chaos. A county manager will not know from whom he has to take direction, the elected council or the Minister. As has been said earlier, because the Minister will now have the power to decide how long a manager can stay in office and whether or not his tenure of office should be renewed, it would be understandable if a county manager decided that the safest thing to do was what the Minister told him. The proposal in this section is a reversal of local democracy. Not only will we have the existing problem of conflict between elected councils and appointed managers but we will have the additional problem of managers who, because of this legislation, will say, "We have to do what we are told by the Minister because it says so in section 3 (8) of the Local Government Act, 1991."