I move amendment No. 1:
In page 3, subsection (1), to delete line 37, and in page 4, to delete lines 1 and 2.
I am sorry for the Minister of State, that he was sent in here to try to defend things the other Minister of State said at the beginning of the debate. If the Minister of State would care to look back at my remarks, he will find that my criticisms were directed principally at the overblown language used by the Minister of State at the Department of the Environment and Local Government, Deputy Molloy, and at some of the technical aspects of the Bill. I notice there is still no answer from the Minister of State on how many of the 102 towns listed in the press release will benefit from a designation.
Amendment No. 1 concerns one of the features that runs through this Bill – the element of arbitrariness. The provision which Deputy Gilmore and I propose to delete is one which simply sets out arbitrarily, without any explanation, to exclude towns in County Dublin from the benefit of this scheme. There may be an argument for doing it, but the argument needs to be made. Why, for example, exclude Balbriggan, Skerries, Rush, Lusk, The Naul, Dalkey, Stepaside, Ballybrack, Shankill and even Clondalkin. They are all excluded and every one of them, as I know from my childhood, was and still is a town with an identifiable centre, an identifiable entity. The same can be said of Clondalkin and Glasthule, and it can certainly be said of Skerries and of Balbriggan.
Why exclude those from the provisions of this Bill? Why exclude the potential to support a community and the development of a community in the way that this Bill sets out to do in towns countrywide? I have no idea. This element of arbitrariness runs all through this Bill. It is arbitrary in the way the selection is made. The Minister of State has objected to my exaggeration of the role of the Minister for Finance. I tabled an amendment for later on which perhaps the Minister of State could accept, that would remove the arbitrariness of the role of the Minister for Finance in this and that would respect subsidiarity, which the Minister has now discovered.
The provisions of this Bill, the arbitrariness of which is illustrated in section 1, give a totally arbitrary role to the Minister for Finance in these designations. Having invited local authorities to do the job for which the Minister of State rightly commended him, he takes all decisions out of their hands as to which towns will be designated.
I invite the Minister of State to accept amendment No. 1 and to signal that he accepts the other amendments tabled in Deputy Gilmore's name and mine, intended to remove the arbitrary character of this Bill.