I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."
The Local Government Bill 2003 should be viewed as another step in the process of local government renewal which has been moving progressively forward over recent years. It is a short Bill. Its primary effect will be to end the dual mandate from the next local elections in 2004 and to continue the current long-standing arrangements for the election of the cathaoirligh of county and city councils.
The Bill must be looked at against the broader canvas of the developing roles both of the national Parliament and local government, and the distinctive but complementary roles of each now reflected in the Constitution. Local government is a separate and distinct element of our democratic system and the Bill recognises that fact.
As I have said from the outset in the Seanad, the Bill is clearly not a comprehensive overhaul of local government, nor have I ever attempted to represent it as such. I ask Members of this House not to view it in isolation, but as an element in an ongoing agenda of change for local government. Indeed I regard it as simply a starting point.
The ending of the dual mandate has been advocated by a broad range of interests for a considerable time. The Barrington report in 1990 recommended that simultaneous membership of local government and the national Parliament should end. Bodies such as the General Council of County Councils, the Chambers of Commerce of Ireland and the National Youth Council have voiced support for the ending of the dual mandate. The second report of the Commission on the Status of Women recommended the ending of the dual mandate and saw it as helping to open up wider opportunity for women to enter local government. This is to be encouraged, not just as a gender issue but in terms of the diversity of views, roles and knowledge it would bring to local government given that currently only about 16% of councillors are female.
The ending of the dual mandate will bring about substantial change and together with the normal turnover at election time will help pave the way for an influx of new entrants to local government. The Bill is therefore the culmination of a long process which has been moving progressively in this direction for well over a decade.
The Local Government Act 1991 took the first step by disqualifying Ministers and Ministers of State from local authority membership. The next step was the Local Government Act 1994, which disqualified the Ceann Comhairle, Cathaoirleach of the Seanad and MEPs from local authority membership. In addition, that Act provided that from the 1999 local elections onwards Members of the Oireachtas who were councillors could not hold the position of cathaoirleach or leas-chathaoirleach of a local authority. Indeed the White Paper, Better Local Government, published in 1996 committed that Government to consider further action after the 1999 local elections.
However we have now reached the stage where 12 years after the first legislative steps were taken, the dual mandate will be brought to a close by this Bill in about a year's time. In this context it is worth noting that the ending of the dual mandate has been the official policy of almost all political parties in this House. The main Opposition parties supported the ending of the dual mandate the last time such legislation was before this House. The ending of the dual mandate will allow local government to develop its own separate role within our democracy for the first time since the foundation of the State. No longer will the conduct of council business be subject to such external constraints as parliamentary timetables, nor should it be.
The ending of the dual mandate is also a recognition of the growth in the range and complexity of local government business over the last decade. A range of issues dealt with by local authorities on a daily basis include planning, roads, traffic, housing, environmental, amenity and recreational services, together with a renewed emphasis on community development and social inclusion. To understand the implications of this for local elected members, all one must do is consider the manner in which policy-making and implementation has changed to become more inclusive and transparent, which demands a far greater level of interaction with local sectoral, community and other groups.
A still further dimension for councillors is the range of other bodies on which they sit and bring a democratically-grounded community perspective to bear. This extensive list includes health boards, county enterprise boards, tourism bodies, Leader groups, port companies, local partnerships, regional authorities and assemblies, vocational education committees and county development boards.
In parallel, at national level, the parliamentary committee system has continued to develop and provide the opportunity for members to have a much fuller role in the consideration of legislation and in the overview of Government policy generally. The demands on time have increased correspondingly. This is a trend which will undoubtedly intensify as Parliament evolves still further in tune with the key role of the Oireachtas which, under the Constitution, is charged with the sole and exclusive power of making laws for the State and where the duration of parliamentary and committee sessions may well extend further in line with those of other states. The leader of Fine Gael said so today.