We are considering amendments Nos. 1 to 3, inclusive, by agreement.
Local Government Bill 2003 [ Seanad ] : Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage.
Debate resumed on amendment No. 1:
In page 3, to delete lines 14 to 27.
– (Deputy Allen).
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle
When I last spoke I attempted to respond to the range of issues raised by various Deputies. We had already largely covered them on Second and Committee Stages. I have made my position clear and I am not minded to accept these amendments.
I must register my protest at the speed with which Second Stage was dispatched by the Government imposing a guillotine on the debate. It was wrong.
There was a six and a half hour debate on Second Stage.
It was not sufficient.
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle
I would like the discussion to refer to the amendments.
I wish to speak specifically to amendment No. 1. There was not sufficient time to address a matter which profoundly affects very many Members of the Dáil. There was no need to impose a guillotine. I have been a local authority member for 11 years and a Member of the Dáil for six and I have a deep interest in the legislation. Deputies like me deserved more time to tease out the issues. The reason I opposed this Bill on Second Stage and oppose it again is that it does not deserve to be called the Local Government Bill 2003 as it is a sham and a pretence at reform of local government. It is designed to suit the agendas of Fianna Fáil in particular and perhaps the Progressive Democrats in terms of how they wish to position themselves for the next general election.
This Bill downgrades severely by implication the responsibilities of Members of the Dáil and the standing of their service on local authorities. I have always rejected the media cliché and slur that members of the local authorities who are also Members of the Dáil are double jobbing. Representing working class communities, as I do, is not a job, it is a seamless mission to represent communities and people on local authorities and in the national parliament. There is no conflict between the two. People who see politics at local or national level in crude career terms as a money-making exercise describe this as double jobbing. As a representative of working class communities who lives on the wage of an average worker from all the representational functions I have no matter what they are, I reject that view. I do not see any contradiction between serving the community in the Dáil or in local government.
The reason I used the words "by implication" when referring to the downgrading of Deputies who are local authority members is that the legislation specifically forbids Members from taking up membership of their local authorities. It does not exclude the real double jobbing and the real double jobbers who moonlight as publicans, barristers and landlords. Real conflicts of interest arise for those supposedly representing ordinary people while being deeply involved in their own business dealings. If the Minister were serious about the argument calling for more time for Dáil Members to concentrate on legislative matters without being distracted by local government responsibilities, why did he not clear out the real double jobbers through legislation? Why does the Minister make an exception of local government service by Members of the Dáil?
Given that I have only two minutes to contribute, I do not propose to rehash the arguments which have already been made. I return to the issue of the constitutionality or otherwise of this section of the Bill.
The Minister will recall that on Committee Stage he was asked to publish and make available the legal advice he has received that the provision is constitutional. The constitutionality of this section of the Bill has been raised on several occasions in this House, at committee and in the Seanad which has given ample time for the Minister and the Attorney General to reconsider and re-examine the issue. It must have been the case that points of view expressed here and in the Seanad caused the Minister to ask the Attorney General to give a renewed opinion on this issue. On all occasions the Minister has been asked to address this question, he skirted around it. He has told us in the course of this Report Stage debate that any Bill presented to the House goes through the office of the Attorney General during drafting and that there is a presumption of constitutionality. That is not good enough given that direct questions have been raised about the Bill's constitutionality. Opinions have been expressed in the House, which is something we can all do, but at the end of the day the Supreme Court will determine whether the Bill is constitutional.
I would have thought that in view of the fact that the issue has been raised on so many occasions and in so many ways that the Minister would have asked the Attorney General for a second or even third opinion as well as for reassurance. Given that he has been asked by several Members, including me, to provide a legal opinion, if the Bill brought before the House on the basis of presumed constitutionality is struck down by the President by reference or challenge in the courts, the Minister will find himself in an impossible position.
Before we adjourned, the Minister stressed in his reply that he did not think local authorities would be weakened or that Oireachtas Members would not continue to have the same interest in local government. I dispute that strongly. It is quite obvious that there will be a conflict between the Oireachtas and local authorities when no local authority members are sitting here. When legislation relevant to local government is being debated by the Oireachtas no one is better qualified to examine it than Members of the Houses who are also members of local authorities. There are 123 of them at present. These Members have a direct interest in the legislation which might affect them at local authority level. If this Bill becomes law, no Member of the House will have the same interest as Members in this Chamber now have in such matters.
It would satisfy many people if the Minister would tell the House when he proposes to make known the regulations he will introduce to protect the rights of Oireachtas Members who will no longer be members of local authorities in terms of their legitimate representations at local government level. If we knew what those regulations were to be, we might be quite satisfied. It appears the Government backbenchers have been satisfied in this regard as they are no longer participating in the debate. When will the regulations be introduced and how does the Minister propose to fully protect the rights of representation of Oireachtas Members in the local authority areas that they represent in the Oireachtas?
I wish to draw attention to the absence of certain Fianna Fáil backbenchers here today. They were so vociferous—
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle
That has nothing to do with the amendment.
Fianna Fáil backbenchers raised questions concerning the constitutionality of the Bill and the relationship between Oireachtas Members and local authorities as well as other issues. They behaved like mighty mouse in their constituencies but, like Mickey Mouse, many of them did not even speak – they drifted away. Have they been bought off with promises or do their own political ambitions take precedence over their political principles? I do not know the answer, but they are playing two sides of the road on this as well as on other Bills and it is fooling no one.
On the Thursday before Easter, I and other spokespersons raised with the Minister the question of the constitutionality of the Bill. He said that, as with any other Bill introduced, he sought legal advice. However, we have all raised serious questions about the constitutionality of the Bill and I ask the Minister to make available the legal advice he received, for which there is precedent, so we can be satisfied that the Bill is constitutional.
I have already said that it would be a political hanging offence for the Minister if, having heard all the warnings, this Bill were found to be unconstitutional. The Minister would have no choice but to resign. He may laugh, but that would be a serious and fundamental error of judgment in an important Bill. For his own sake, I ask the Minister to publish the Attorney General's advice because I am putting down a marker that, if it is tested and found to be unconstitutional, the Minister will be seen to have been grievously politically negligent in his capacity as the Minister promoting this Bill.
I was not laughing at the Deputy. As I have repeated on many occasions, all Bills that come before the House go through the Attorney General's office and are cleared for constitutionality. This would not be the first Bill to come before both Houses and be found to be unconstitutional. However, I have no such expectation with regard to this Bill.
The constitutionality of the Bill comes down to one issue, which is whether one is for or against the dual mandate. There is nothing in any section, specific sentence or aspect of the Bill which is unconstitutional. The issue is a red herring. The flag of constitutionality is being raised by those who want to stop the dual mandate. Interestingly, these are the same people who, just over two years ago, had exactly the opposite point of view and seemed not to have any problem with constitutionality.
The Minister voted for direct elections two years ago.
They now have all sorts of difficulties. Let us wash away this red herring, this big flag that is being wrapped around this Bill by those who seek to oppose it. I have no difficulty with people who disagree with the principle being established – it is their fundamental right to do so.
Will the Minister allow a free vote on the matter?
However, they should not start wrapping the issue up and waving a voodoo man to suggest that this has to do with constitutionality.
That is a terrible way to talk about the Supreme Court.
It is a terrible way to talk about Government backbenchers.
If the Bill is to be tested before any courts, like any other Member, I will accept the views of the eminent judges.
And resign.
Further amendments have been tabled on regulations and we will deal with them in due course. I have dealt with all these matters on Committee and Report Stages in the Seanad and the Dáil and I am satisfied with the points I have made.
Question, "That the words proposed to be deleted stand", put and declared carried.
Amendment declared lost.
Amendment No. 2 not moved.
I move amendment No. 3:
In page 3, between lines 27 and 28, to insert the following:
"(3) Where a member of a House of the Oireachtas is elected to a local authority, he or she shall not be entitled to become a member of the authority concerned unless he or she forthwith resigns from the House.
(4) If a member of a House of the Oireachtas having been so elected fails forthwith to resign his or her membership of the House concerned, the highest placed unsuccessful candidate in the local authority election concerned shall be deemed to have been elected instead of the member of the House.".
Amendment put and declared lost.
We now move on to amendment No. 4 in the name of Deputy Allen, which arises out of committee proceedings. Amendments Nos. 5 to 8, inclusive, 12 and 13 are related and may be taken together by agreement.
I move amendment No. 4:
In page 4, line 5, after "regulations" to insert "which regulations shall be published before this Bill is enacted".
I will not delay the House on this matter. On Committee Stage, I asked the Minister to publish the regulations and I ask him again if we can have sight of them because of the justifiable reservations we have. I have set out my concerns and the reasons I want the situation to be firmed up in amendment form. I ask the Minister to publish the regulations and, if he will not, what his reasons are. Has the Minister shown these regulations to his backbenchers since they are not here today? Are they happy with them and, if he has shown them to the backbenchers why can the House not be provided with them so we can make a proper political judgment?
I was premature in my contribution on the previous amendment. We would be finished a long time before six o' clock if the regulations were spelt out. Using my political judgment, it appears to me that Government Deputies must be satisfied with what the Minister has spelt out to them on the regulations or else they accept the Minister's good faith in this matter. It is not so easy for us to do so because, like Deputy Allen, I would like the regulations spelt out to illustrate how the rights of Oireachtas Members, as representatives at local authority level, will be protected since they will be representing counties, cities or parts of them after this legislation is passed. It is all very well to say that there will be directives to county managers and everyone else. However, I know about this issue to my cost because I am in a different position to most local authority members in the House in that I resigned from a local authority in the last election, having been involved for 27 years on the county council. I did not stand for the county council, although I continued my membership of Galway City Council. I was probably unique in that I was on a county and city council at the same time. I know that my rights as an Oireachtas Member, still representing a large part of County Galway, at local authority level were impeded since I no longer remained a member of the local authority. I remain a Member of the Oireachtas for a large part of the county, yet I do not have the same privileges and rights as an Oireachtas Member as when I was a member of that local authority. No matter what the Minister says, I know from experience that my rights have been impeded as I am now no longer a member of one local authority in County Galway.
Therefore, what assurances can the Minister give us regarding the regulations he will introduce? For example, a member of a local authority in County Galway has rights in matters of planning in that he or she has a right to table a prior notice on a planning application, whereby he or she will be notified a few days before the decision if there is a difficulty with the file. Sometimes those difficulties can be corrected and sometimes they cannot, but in most cases they are simple matters. Rather than issuing a refusal to the applicant, the time should be extended so that the difficulties can be dealt with. That right is no longer available to me as an Oireachtas Member in Galway county. It is available in Galway city because I am a member of the local authority there still. I am now asking the Minister whether that right will be available to Members of the Oireachtas who continue to be Members while representing large areas of local authorities. I just want a "Yes" or "No" answer to that.
If we got the assurances we were looking for as regards the protection of the rights of Oireachtas Members as members of local authorities, there might not be nearly as much opposition to the Bill as there is now. It might be in the interest of the Minister to ensure better goodwill towards this Bill by spelling this out. I am sorry the Minister was not here to hear this, but I am sure the Minister of State will brief him on what I have said. I know from my experience that my rights since I retired from the county council have not been protected and are not the same as they were when I was a member. I do not want that to happen to me now, as a Member of the Oireachtas, in the part of the local authority I still represent in Galway city. If the Minister spells out the regulations he might satisfy the people on this side of the House as he appears to have satisfied the people on the Government side.
I support these amendments, which are very important. I am disappointed – I share my disappointment with Deputies Allen and McCormack – that the Minister has not published the draft regulations that will be made under the Bill. There are a number of issues still swinging uncertainly in the air. What the Minister has said is that regulations will be made to govern the relationship between Members of the Oireachtas and local authorities.
A phrase that has been used is that local authorities shall conduct their dealings with Members of either House in accordance with regulations under subsection (3). "Dealings" is defined to mean a dealing with a Member of the Oireachtas in his or her capacity as such a Member. I raised this point on Committee Stage and to be fair to the Minister, he confirmed that the regulations would make it explicit that the capacity of a member would not be defined in its narrowest sense – in other words, its narrowest law-making sense – but that it would include the normal representation of constituents, either as individuals or as groups, that is done on a day-to-day basis by Members. This was to be explicit in the regulations. I do not doubt the Minister's word on this, but we are flying blind as far as Report Stage of the Bill is concerned as we do not have the draft regulations.
Regulations will also be made to govern the making available of local authority documentation to Members of the Oireachtas. This includes the agendas, notices and minutes of local authority meetings and other specified documentation or information. We do not know what "specified documentation or information" means. Does it mean, for example, that if the local authority is considering, let us say, a development plan for a city or county, the working papers for that plan will be made available to Members of the Oireachtas? When a draft is made by the council, will it be made available to Members? Will the maps associated with the draft be available?
There are to be arrangements governing correspondence between Members of the Oireachtas and local authorities. We presume that means there will be a statutory obligation on local authorities to respond to correspondence from Members of the Oireachtas. However, that leaves a lot of things unclear. First of all, no time limit is indicated in the Bill – I do not know whether one is intended for the regulations – in which the local authority must respond to a Member.
That might result in perfunctory responses.
Of course. All of us receive perfunctory responses from public bodies acknowledging our representations and assuring us we will receive further correspondence in due course. Due course is a very open-ended period of time, as most of us know, in many of these cases. What Members of the Oireachtas, or anybody who makes representations to a local authority, want is a serious, substantive reply dealing with the issue that is raised, within a reasonable period of time. Again, that is not spelled out.
I return to the point made by Deputy Allen during our discussion on an earlier amendment. It is significant that there is not a single member of any of the Government parties in the House for this debate. Nor, indeed, is there a single member of the Independents who normally support the Government. Given the amount of noise and opposition, perhaps in some cases mock opposition, we have heard in the press in relation to this measure from members of the Government parties and Independents, it is remarkable that none of them is here for Report Stage of the Bill.
They now know why.
As Deputy Allen asked earlier, do they know something the rest of us do not? Have they been supplied with the draft regulations or with indications from the Minister of their contents so that they are satisfied? I invite the Minister to tell the House clearly what is to be in these regulations. I ask him to accept these reasonable amendments. If he does, we can conclude Report Stage now and the Minister can circulate the regulations to us, after which we can come back another day and take Fifth Stage of the Bill. We would at least be doing so in the knowledge of what is to be contained in the regulations.
Will the Ceann Comhairle clarify that amendments Nos. 12 and 13 are being discussed now?
Yes.
I support these amendments. I would like some clarification from the Minister on representations to local authorities. For example, county council members here may not be members of an urban, district or town council. Would the provision about representations be extended to include those other local authorities within the constituency? At the moment, our constituency office could make the representation. Perhaps the Minister will clarify that this is still to be the case and that representations are to be accepted by the local authority from our offices.
I firmly support amendment No. 13. I would like clarification on the issue, which has been raised of reports coming through the local authority. Will those reports – draft plans, plans as adopted, amended county development plans, new county development plans – be available to Members of the Oireachtas under the new regulations that the Minister proposes to introduce? It would have been much better if we could have seen the regulations, but we got a firm commitment from the Minister on Committee Stage that the proposed regulations would embrace the issues that we, the committee members, raised. There is an element of good faith there. For members of the Opposition to take a Minister on good faith may be a challenge.
A challenge both ways.
I am looking forward to seeing how the Minister comes through this. He could save us a great deal of bother if he accepted these amendments which I commend to the House.
What the Minister is doing is unacceptable. He is writing into the Bill promised regulations along certain lines as an important part of it without spelling out in advance exactly what this would entail. He is treating the elected Opposition members with contempt.
I am not.
He is. He is making a distinction, in effect, between Government backbenchers and Members standing up here as I am trying to represent my constituents.
I certainly am not.
It only looks like that.
I would not do that.
I ask the Minister to allow the Deputy to make his point.
Other Members have raised the fact that some message has gone out or some information has been imparted because either Fianna Fáil backbenchers would be here or the odd brave soul would be making his or her way to the plinth if they still had the types of objections many of them were known to have when this matter first came up for discussion in the House. In fairness to every elected Member of the Dáil, the Minister should say what information he has given about the regulations which he proposes to introduce. Have those regulations been already worked out? Are they there in black and white? If they are, why not share them with every Member of the Dáil rather than dealing with them in hushed and covert meetings in which none of us is able to participate?
There is a need for the type of specifics contained in some of the amendments tabled by Deputy Allen. Despite the fact that the Minister is ending the dual mandate by decree, one can be certain that ordinary people in the constituencies will not make the same distinction as he is making. They will expect Members of the Dáil to be familiar with some issues of importance under the ambit of the local authority and to be able to advise them on those issues. It will not be good enough to say to them to speak to their councillors about those issues. Rather than putting Members of the Dáil through debating this unnecessary Bill, the Minister could have resolved this matter by leaving it up to the people to decide whether they wanted those who went forward to exercise a dual mandate by voting in or out Members of the Dáil who would have gone forward in the next local elections. The Minister could have imposed this in his party's constitution and that would have resolved the issue he wanted to achieve, which was largely for Fianna Fáil's advantage.
Some of the people whom I represent will have some important issues they will want to raise with me as an elected Member of the Dáil which are really the responsibility of the local authority, for example, serious planning issues. In the case of west Dublin, they are vital issues, which I know people will want to raise, discuss, get advice on and give me advice on. I should be clear when voting for this measure what type of information I will be entitled to from the local authority on those and other issues. Therefore, it is unfair for the Minister to come into the House with essentially a pig in a poke, put this Bill through the Dáil and then not be specific about this aspect of it.
In the event that this Bill goes through and is not knocked down by the courts or tripped up in some other way, if I want to attend a council meeting as an observer, will the Minister include such a provision in the regulations so that I would not be beholden to a councillor to do that? I am sure different local authorities have different standing orders, but some require a councillor to sign a person into the visitors gallery as an observer. I would like the regulations to provide that a representative such as me – this would cover membership of the Dáil but also all the functional areas of a local authority – would have the right to attend a council meeting as an observer without having to be beholden to a councillor. I might be in a local authority area where no member of my party is a member of the authority and other Members might be in the same position and be beholden to a councillor to attend and observe a meeting of the authority.
I am disappointed that some, if not all, Members suggested that I would produce in some way some set of regulations to favour one group of people in this House, be it members of my party or the Government, and not do so for other Members. That is without foundation.
Something has satisfied members of the Minister's party.
They have great confidence in him.
Allow the Minister to continue without interruption.
I was complimenting him.
I reject any suggestion that I would behave in such a manner. I have served long enough in Opposition in this House since 1987 and fortunately in Government also to respect the rights of all Members equally in this Parliament. I would not in any way undermine such an approach. I ask Members to accept my bona fides on this.
The genesis of the debate of real concern on this matter which started when I introduced this Bill in the Seanad was based primarily on one point.
No.
It was based on one fundamental point, although there were a number of other points.
There were five points.
The first fundamental point with which I want to deal is that in the debate on the original Bill I said I would bring in guidelines. It was made clear that was unacceptable not only to members of my party and the Government but almost universally to all Members both Houses. It was pointed out to me that this measure was considered insufficient to deal with this matter and that unless I was prepared to change that proposal on the basis of good, sound, logical arguments to statutory regulations which would have the absolute force of law backing them, this Bill would have been deemed by Members to be fundamentally flawed in terms of their ability to interact with local government and local authorities throughout the country. I had no difficulty in accepting that point of view which was first made strongly by Senator Tuffy in some detail in the Seanad and also by Senator Bannon and Deputy Finneran and others in my party. I fully accepted that. I not alone then moved to change the specific part of the original Bill from guidelines to statutory regulations, I went substantially further than that, which surprised some people because I was not directly asked to do so by completely recasting section 3. I went into great detail in that section. One of the key elements that was brought into the Bill was the word "access". It was an issue many Members said they wanted to see clearly spelt out in the Bill. I moved to bring that in and used that phraseology in the context of the Bill.
I have covered all the points Deputy Allen laid out in his amendments in what I said on Second and Committee Stages and my intent is absolute in this regard. With regard to many of the issues, there is a fundamental uniqueness. The standard approach in countless Acts for many years allows for the relevant detail of an Act to be set out in regulations. However, section 3 does not use the usual formulation, namely, "may make regulations", which is the normal standard procedure. I went substantially further by requiring that the Minister "shall". There is a major difference between the two and I was commended by all Members for going that route, not only to make my views clear to Members of the Dáil or Seanad but also to make my approach in this regard explicit to local authority officials. The section requires that I shall include provisions for various matters and that local authorities shall conduct their dealings with Oireachtas Members in accordance with the regulations. That is fundamentally different from all legislation that deals with regulations. I went a long way beyond where one would normally be requested to go. I was not specifically asked to do this but I did it so that Members would be clear that I, as Minister, had no choice in this matter.
I have an open mind and cannot decide on the issue of laying down timeframes. I have a concern in this regard in that they are usually dealt with by the perfunctory response to the effect that further information may follow. That is not what I want to happen nor, I am sure, is it what Members of either House want. There is an issue about what we mean and how the system is to be operated. Members have said that much of what is involved in this regard will depend on the interaction, relationship and trust that exists and local authorities gearing themselves up to deal properly and efficiently with this. Many Members have said that they have a very good relationship with local authorities and see no need for this measure. However, we cannot live in that era. We want to set out in detail how we will deal with this issue. As Members are aware, the regulations must be laid before both Houses—
When?
—and I have no doubt they will take a view on that.
I have covered all the issues Deputy Allen has raised. I have stated my case even down to the point of dealing with planning applications. I have said on record that the regulations will cover Oireachtas Members in carrying out their general representational role and will require that notice of meetings, agendas, minutes, annual reports – I went further and made it explicit that the annual reports would not only have to be made available but sent to each Member in their local area – accounts, corporate plans and other documentation are supplied to Oireachtas Members, with planning lists. I have been more than clear and fair in removing the possibility of get-out clauses for me by the manner in which I have constructed section 3. This has largely satisfied all Members on both sides in terms of the procedures and my intent because I have gone so far on record in setting out the content of the regulations. I have covered much of the broad thrust of this by recasting section 3.
The law allows members of the public or Oireachtas Members to attend local authority meetings, but I will consider what Deputy Joe Higgins said. Perhaps it should be explicit in the regulations that Members of the Oireachtas can, as a matter of course and right, attend local authority meetings. I do not have a difficulty with examining that as an addition. This is part of the reason I have not published this as we have gone along. I have wanted to take on board ideas as they have come forward throughout the debate. I have confirmed at every point the position I will adopt.
By and large, the same arrangements that apply to councillors will also operate for Oireachtas Members. I cannot be more explicit than that. It is more than fair and upfront and I have removed much of the concern and sting by being very open in responding to Members in the Government parties and the Opposition. Deputy Allen's amendments are commendable and may be discussed when I draft the regulations. I have an open mind on these timeframes. I can look on them in one way and be positive or in another and be unsure about them. I would prefer if they were not in place because we might then put a better system into operation. I am not wedded to it in any specific way.
I wish to put on record the reasons my party opposes the Bill. They are: the question mark about constitutionality, the U-turn on directly elected mayors, the regulations under discussion, the right of Deputies to submit parliamentary questions and Senators to raise issues on local authority matters, and the broader question of local government reform. This Bill is a set of stand-alone proposals which ignore the need for local government reform.
I find myself in difficulty. I came to the House having decided to call a vote on all these amendments and contest the issues, but I am almost convinced to have faith in the Minister and his sincerity in this regard.
On amendments Nos. 9 to 11, inclusive, which were deemed out of order because they are matters for the House, will the Minister and his party facilitate and support any moves by the House to incorporate the substance of these amendments in the Standing Orders of the House? They would make certain the right of Members of Dáil Éireann to submit parliamentary questions on issues related to local authority matters and to raise similar issues on the Adjournment and the right of Members of Seanad Éireann to raise simi lar issues in that Chamber. If we could co-operate on putting these proposals in place, perhaps we could have faith in respect of the other amendments. I believe the Minister is sincere in what he says.
Regarding the empty Government benches, someone must have pacified the self-appointed shop stewards in Fianna Fáil who are regularly on the plinth raising issues about all legislation.
I accept the Minister's bona fides and that when he puts something on record in the House, he intends to carry it through. However, it is remarkable that no one from the Government side who, we are led to believe, expressed views at parliamentary party meetings and publicly, and for two or three years fought a war of attrition on this issue, has presented for Report Stage, the final opportunity for Members exercised about this issue to say something about it, make a stand on it, protest or explain why they have been so concerned about it for the past two to three years. Deputy Allen raised the issue of the use of parliamentary questions on matters affecting local authorities. I take the view that any issue in a local authority which requires, or which is subject to, approval by the Minister or the Department, is a proper matter on which to table a parliamentary question. Issues of that kind should not be ruled out or order or should not be dismissed and the Minister should not state that he has no responsibility to the House for it.
The Minister did that this week.
That is something that I expect we will see increasingly asserted in the House in the new situation. Frankly, that might not necessarily be a bad thing for local government because if the end result is for the Custom House to leave to local government many of the things that it now insists on having every tittle-tattle approved by the Department, it might be a good thing in the long run. If the Department says it wants something approved then we can ask a question in the House about it. That is the rule.
I too am heartened by the Minister's last contribution which I found convincing. I now understand and can grasp why there is no need for Government backbenchers to be here in the House because naturally enough if they were given the same assurances, and I am sure they were, as we are getting on the record of the House, I believe they would be satisfied.
I still have some concerns about the publication of the regulations. How long will it be until the regulations are published? The Minister spoke about minutes and agendas of meetings which I consider to be of lesser importance because they can always be obtained from a councillor, but there are statutory rights which councillors had built up by right or tradition. I accept that the Minister said that every right that is now available to a member of a local authority will continue to be available to a Member of the Oireachtas representing the area in the local authority when he or she is no longer a member of the local authority. If the Minister could finally satisfy me on that point, I would join with Deputy Allen in not pressing those amendments. In my opinion, the Minister has gone 95% of the way to convincing me and it would only take another 5% to convince me that he is serious about these rights. That will not stop me believing that it is a loss to the local authority not to have Oireachtas Members and it is a loss to the Oireachtas not to have members of local authorities.
I hope the Minister can finally satisfy me on amendment No. 13. To my cost I left a county council last election and I lost my rights in these matters. I continue to be a member of a city council but I lost my rights as regards the county council. Some county managers would be happy to see Oireachtas Members go from the councils because sometimes they think they know too much.
I am brand new to politics. I may still be a little bit trusting on how things work and I never sat on a local authority. We have spoken a lot about how Oireachtas Members will be affected by not having access to local authorities. This may be an inappropriate question to the Minister. How does he think the performance of Oireachtas Members will improve when they are no longer sitting on the local authority and are not distracted by the work of the local authority? Will this improve the workings of this House? What is the basis of this Bill? I would like to hear his views.
I did not wish to intervene when the Deputy was speaking. We are dealing with five amendments and the Minister will have only two minutes to respond and he may wish to keep within the amendments.
I wish to speak on the subject of correspondence from Members to local authority officials. According to the Ombudsman's report last week, the general public has lost faith in the Minister and in us. They believe they cannot get replies to queries and they are now depending on the Ombudsman. He said that the largest number of complaints concerned local authorities because of the way people were being treated regarding responses to queries.
Will there now be better local government? There were a lot of jobs provided for the boys and girls. Will there be a specific official to deal with correspondence from Oireachtas Members? I have a copy of a letter I wrote in November to a local authority which was not replied to until February.
The Deputy was lucky.
I suppose I was lucky but it is not acceptable and I only received a reply because I asked about it two or three times. I expect to receive a detailed reply regarding the query that was made.
The public are disillusioned by the manner in which they are treated by the public service. I am a member of the public service even though the Minister's officials may not think so. I am paid out of the same kitty and I do the same job on behalf of the people as they do. They must remember they do not have a God-given right to work for the local authority and can be protected by the system. They protect one another. I know that most public officials do an excellent job. They deal with people and their problems in a satisfactory manner. Some council officials think they are untouchable and they think they are protected by the system. I deal with them every day of the week and if they treat me like that, how do they treat the general public? That is why people are turning to the Ombudsman because they have lost faith in councillors, in Oireachtas Members and in the system.
I compliment the Ombudsman who has recently retired. He was a civil servant and I was critical of his appointment because I believed that one civil servant would not deal with another. He was an excellent Ombudsman.
The Deputy is wandering away from the amendments before us.
He understood how local authorities worked and he understood how civil servants think. He was good because he was the poacher turned gamekeeper. There are many civil servants who are glad that he is gone because he was able to manage them and he knew how they thought and how they would react. How will the Minister deal with the question of responses to inquiries from Oireachtas Members to local authorities?
Much of the debate in regard to these amendments is focused on the issue of special treatment for Dáil Deputies in terms of the service they would receive from a local authority. Since the last time I spoke on this subject last week, I am delighted to report that I received a spanking draft development plan from Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council at no charge. I am glad to see that there was accommodation—
That is not the case in Galway where it costs €35 for the plan and €35 for the maps.
—of my concerns. I will look after that for Deputy McCormack or perhaps the Minister will. I am not convinced that this idea of a special consideration for Dáil Deputies is a good thing because any member of the public should receive a duty of care and a standard of service such as we would hope to receive. Given the pay increases within the local authority sector and the investment in the sector, I think any member of the public should receive a high quality of service and a detailed reply by e-mail or letter to correspondence. That is what we are looking for ourselves and it should extend to any member of the public. This morning I went out to the IPA to hear Professor Mark Landy from Boston College talk about local government, using the United States as an example. He was making the seminal point that good mayors make for good governments, and those mayors need to be given power. He made a strong point that directly elected good mayors have led to good city governments in many cities in the US, not just the big cities within the smaller states such as Cincinnati and Philadelphia. I will come back to that point later on my own amendment since dropping directly elected mayors is not a good thing.
On the amendments before us, we should seek equality of care, equality of service and an improvement on what we now get. All members of the public should be entitled to this level of service.
I agree with Deputies Ring and McCormack. This is not just about servicing ourselves, which is a fundamental and important point. I expect customer care to be available to every member of the public in equal measure, as to us. I have been critical of some councillors and councils throughout the country on aspects of things that have not been dealt with. This House has made available enormous resources in terms of IT systems, management and so on to improve the functioning of local government. From all of that, I now want to see customer satisfaction beginning to emerge with regard to access to information, prompt replies and good replies for everyone, which is their right. If customers obtained this type of service there would be less need for people to approach councillors or TDs.
In regard to matters pertaining to the Minister for the Environment and Local Government, the post I happen to currently hold, I answer a huge number of questions each day, either by way of the written or oral questions procedure. This will obviously continue in place. I am frustrated at times when some questions are disallowed, but these are the rules of the House. It would suit me on many occasions to take these questions. If this brings about a review in the context of the Members I would be quite happy about it.
I would say to Deputy McCormack that obviously councillors as a body have statutory rights, as have we, in terms organising work programmes and so on. Obviously, as Members of this House, we will not give ourselves superior statutory rights on certain issues over councillors. That would not be tenable. As I said earlier, in terms of the generality of arrangements in terms of information and so on, I expect similar provisions to be put in place. I will not just request local authorities to do this, I will set it down by way of regulation to ensure it will happen.
When the regulations come before the House will we have an opportunity to debate them?
A motion can be tabled on the regulations. This will cause a debate to be held.
The Minister is indicating that?
Yes.
Will the Minister agree to let the committee have a look at them?
I will not pre-empt the discussion. I am very open to a debate. I intend to engage informally with front bench Members in this regard.
Even though amendments Nos. 9, 10 and 11 have been ruled out of order, I hope that we will all in a spirit of co-operation attempt to maximise our performance in regard to local authority matters. The Ceann Comhairle has a role in this regard also.
It is a matter for the committee on Dáil reform to decide. The Chair's role is to implement the rules.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendments Nos. 5 to 13, inclusive, not moved.
I move amendment No. 14:
In page 4, between lines 33 and 34, to insert the following:
"4. – Sections 217 to 220 of the Principal Act are repealed.".
The Minister is playing big brother in this section, or perhaps much worse, whereby any Minister for the Environment, not just this Minister, can stand over the local authority with a big stick and if councillors do not adopt the estimates he or she can abolish the local authority. We must see how this relates to the issue of local democracy. As we are cranking up for local government elections next year, prospective candidates are asking what will be their functions. I must say truthfully that part of their function will be to sit around a table, like mice, and nod "yes" to the county manager. The effect of nodding "no" to the county manager will be that he or she will simply go ahead and do the job in any event, the councillor will be ruled out of order and the various estimates or plans will be implemented. The county managers will simply walk over one and steamroll one aside. This is coming from a Government which told us we would see more democracy at local government level. It said it would empower local authorities, local authorities would now be paid and they would all do a wonderful job. Unfortunately, they will not have anything to do because unless they do exactly what the Government says, the county managers will overrule them. What is the point in a democratic process or local electoral process? Why have such a charade?
I was pleased to have the opportunity to move the amendment and to have the issue debated. While it has been touched upon in other debates, it has not been dealt with in the proper fashion. It is grossly unfair for the Minister for the Environment and Local Government to make threats in this way. It is a threat to local authority members that if they do not do business exactly as the Department wants, it will be curtains. Is that empowering or disempowering local government? We know what it is all about. Local authorities are being lined up for the introduction of a finance plan which will replace the rates that were discontinued in 1977. What we are about to see is the introduction of service charges, which is where this part of the Act will be of significance. That is why it is so important to debate the issue in the context of this Bill. It gives us a chance to open the door on this subject. It will almost certainly mean the introduction of service charges sooner rather than later. What will be the consequences of this?
When rates were abolished there was a massive increase in VAT and a whole range of other taxes. Gradually services were withdrawn and the refuse collection service was privatised in virtually all local authorities. Now we have the prospect of water services being privatised. Increasing privatisation is dismantling the public service element of local government. If this amendment is passed, it will end the big stick the Minister holds over local authorities. It would mean that if members moved and agreed estimates, the estimates would have to be accepted. If that were the case, would it be democracy? If the Minister or the Department does not like it, the people will hold the councillors to account. It is up to the public to do that. That is the name of the game in electoral politics, as I have been told since the mid-1970s. Let us have a bit of it from the institutions here.
Look at the shenanigans that took place last year with the Waste Management (Amendment) Act. Four of the seven waste management areas refused to adopt their plans because they included incinerators. We talked earlier about Sellafield but we are going to build our own mini Sellafields with the incinerators.
The Deputy should stop. It depresses me to hear this type of thing from politicians. It is absolute nonsense.
The Minister is not listening. In the last few days we were told that the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform will not build a prison in the Clondalkin area because most of the public representatives do not want it. Most of the public representatives in Drogheda, Meath and Louth do not want an incinerator in Drogheda but we are still going to get one. It is horses for courses and that might be an apt description for what is happening. It is certainly not open and accountable democracy.
I would put one in my own place.
The Minister received 46,000 signatures from the area against the proposal and the local councillors voted against it. Where is the democracy in that?
Where is the solution?
The solution was demonstrated to the Minister a couple of weeks ago when he was in Dundalk. We were told that the Irish people would not recycle because there was no such culture in this country. However, they can barely get in the gates of the recycling plant in Dundalk, such is the demand. The amount of recycling taking place has trebled in three years.
It does not deal with everything.
Unfortunately, as I pointed out earlier on Question Time, they are being penalised and charged for recycling instead of rewarded. I accept there is a cost involved.
However, I will leave that issue aside and concentrate on the local government legislation and trying to get a little local democracy back for the people who bother to put themselves up for election, familiarise themselves with the issues and do the best they can to represent the people who elected them. They do not want to be sheep who go in to put up their hoofs for whatever the county manager nods to them. Local councillors next year will, hopefully, have some backbone but they need the co-operation of the Minister and the Government to facilitate that. They need the power and the responsibility to which they are entitled. They will take it on and implement it successfully if given the chance. I hope Deputies will support the amendment and that the Minister will accept it.
I support the amendment. This amendment is different from most of the previous amendments. It seeks to protect and strengthen the rights of local authority members, regardless of whether they are Members of the Oireachtas. It is not an amendment about strengthening the rights of Oireachtas Members when they are no longer members of local authorities but seeks to strengthen the local authority member. That is commendable, even though we oppose the concept of removing Members of the Oireachtas from local authorities or local authority members from the Oireachtas.
There should be support for an amendment which strengthens the rights of local authority members. The rights of local authority members have been seriously eroded over the last number of years. Last year responsibility for the adoption of waste management plans was taken from the elected members and given to managers. This was done because waste management plans were not adopted in some regions. However, it was also done in areas where waste management plans were adopted by the elected members. Galway City Council adopted the waste management plan and did so with certain far reaching commitments. These have fallen back somewhat since the adoption of the Connacht waste management plan by the manager.
Refuse in Galway was being separated in ten or 12 ways but now it is only being separated in six or seven ways. That is a backward step. There are various reasons for it and one of them is, I fear, that an incinerator on the outskirts of Galway city is now part of the waste management plan and there is not the same initiative anymore. People know that the local authority members have no right to adopt a waste management plan, irrespective of the support for or opposition to matters such as incineration. In that case it was opposition. That right was taken from the elected members.
The rights of elected members are further eroded in this Bill with regard to striking service charges. That right is to be given to the manager. That is a backward step for the authority and rights of local authority members. It does not matter whether those local authority members are no longer Members of the Oireachtas or vice versa. They will still be local authority members who have to carry out their duties in every area. Even though we will no longer be members of local authorities, we should protect those rights. Ten or 15 years hence, when this Chamber is filled with people who are no longer members of local authorities and most of whom will never have been members of local authorities, I doubt that the desire to protect the rights of local authority members will be as strong. However, as long as we are here and have experience as members of local authorities, we should fight in every way, and this amendment is one such way, to protect the rights of local authority members. Those rights should be protected.
The Minister will probably say that this amendment is out of kilter with the rest of the Bill. In fact, it is as valid as anything else in the Bill. It calls the Minister's bluff. He has referred to this Bill as a significant reform and improvement of local government, a claim that is not sustained by the facts.
The unfortunate record of the Minister's predecessor and of this Minister is that they have significantly damaged local democracy. If some of the legislation this Minister intends to bring before the Dáil is passed, he will have presided over one of the most serious attacks on local democracy for a long time. It is an attack which, when the time comes to debate it, will be strongly resisted both inside and outside the Dáil. The sections of the principal Act which are referred to here deal largely with the power proposed in the legislation for commissioners to run local authorities in substitution for members who are disqualified by a Minister for the Environment and Local Government because they have not fulfilled a number of conditions set down by Minister.
I agree with removing the power of commissioners from the legislation. It is the provision of an unelected dictatorship at local level to replace elected local members. That legislation is designed to ride roughshod over local democracy so that the writ of the Minister for Finance and the Government runs in local authorities, despite the reservations and the objections of those who were elected at local level. We have seen this Minister's predecessor threaten local authorities, for example, when they were not willing, or at least not up to a late hour, to adopt significant increases in waste management charges. At some stage this Minister, or his successor, will introduce legislation for more local service charges and local taxes of various kinds, perhaps to try to bring back water charges. The provision that is proposed to be deleted is a guard against that and against the removal of the democratic mandate from locally elected persons after which the local community is subjected to unelected appointees of the Minister.
The Minister claimed that this was a significant reform of the Local Government Bill. If we were entitled to range widely on the issues that we say should come under its ambit then perhaps it would live up to the Minister's claim. The main debate will have to wait for another day when the Minister for the Environment and Local Government comes with his draconian proposals to reduce further the local democratic rights of those elected to the local authorities, and to increase dramatically the power of an unelected manager.
That is not local government reform. That is why I am unconvinced by the claims the Minister is making for this Bill which he alleges is to strengthen local authorities. He cannot have it both ways. He cannot argue that the Local Government Bill 2003 will lay the foundation for significantly improving local democracy and, on the other hand, come here in a few weeks with other legislation which attacks local democracy. That will remove responsibility for waste management at all levels from elected members and give it to an unelected manager with the right to raise any level of refuse tax which he or she wants to raise.
The Minister cannot have it both ways and perhaps he will take the opportunity, which would be in order, to try and square that circle for us because I am puzzled as to how he can make both claims simultaneously. When he does come with his further legislation there will be more time on Second and other Stages to tease out his thinking, and that of the Government, if there is thinking behind it, in greater detail. As the issue has been raised in this amendment and because of the claims the Minister has made and how they contradict what he will be proposing in a few weeks, he might give us an initial résumé of his justification on this occasion.
I wish to support Deputy Morgan's amendment. It is a pity that it was not tabled on Committee Stage because there are details in it that could usefully have been teased through on that Stage.
I could not do that. I was not a member of the committee.
I accept that correction although there are ways around that problem with substitution arrangements and so on.
The position regarding section 217 of the Local Government Act which provides for the holding of replacement elections is in a somewhat different league to the appointment of a commissioner but that is an issue of detail. The issue of principle which the amendment addresses is one with which I agree. Under this Government we are seeing local government, as it is understood everywhere else, being replaced gradually by a system of local administration with direct rule as far as policy is concerned from the Department of the Environment and Local Government.
Whole areas which were previously the subject of policy making by members of local authorities have changed. Responsibility for roads has gone to the National Roads Authority. I recall as a member of the old Dublin County Council the debate over several meetings about the Westlink bridge and the toll scheme. That was once a decision to be made by a local authority but that is no longer the case. The Minister has plans up his sleeve to toll several roads around the country, none of which will be decided by members of the local authority. They will be decided somewhere else. Similarly, on the design of roads, there was a time when these issues were decided by members of local authorities. Now the design is subject to environmental impact study whereby a crowd of consultants or experts come in and write up a big book and a set of maps and nobody dares question it after that. It is signed off and nobody can ever change it.
The environmental impact study process as we have it here is denying the public the right to participate in the process in a meaningful sense. There is a mock public consultation process which is more process than product and which is designed to give the impression that there is some kind of public consultation, when it is really an exercise in which the public is ignored. We see all of that taking place. In theory local authorities can make policy and that is becoming a joke. Dublin City Council, for example, can decide on a policy that Dublin city be a nuclear free zone but if somebody comes along now and proposes to build an incinerator in Ringsend the council has no say in that.
The adoption of a county development plan was once the preserve of members of a local authority. The county manager of the local authority of which up to last Monday I was a member, has interpreted the new Planning and Development Act as meaning that the members of the council have now to comply lock, stock and barrel with strategic planning guidelines and all the documents emanating from the Department of the Environment and Local Government. If that interpretation stands up, and I have my doubts, it leaves little or no discretion in the adoption of a county development plan.
That is right.
Local authorities could also adopt the estimates. Now under the Bill that will come before us shortly we will have a situation whereby the county managers will decide what the level of charge is to be and the members of the local authority will have no option but to roll over and agree to it and if they do not they will be abolished and replaced by a commissioner. So the limited degree of local government and local democratic decision making which once existed in the local government system is now gradually being eliminated and replaced by a system of local administration. That is not local government, and the arrangement whereby the Minister can abolish a council and replace it with commissioners is highly undemocratic. It is probably unconstitutional now, given the provision which the people voted for and which the last Government promoted. Sooner or later that will be tested.
I understand the thrust of Deputy Morgan's amendment to be that he wants to remove the right of the Minister to abolish a council and replace it with a commissioner. I support that amendment. I argued for that when the Local Government Bill, which is now the principal Act was being debated in the House and therefore I support the amendment.
Time is running out and there are several other amendments to be taken.
I have been a member of a local authority since 1979, with a short period out of office when I spent a little time in the Department of the Environment and the Department of Education. My family was also in local government. My grandfather was a member of the first republican corporation in Cork city and I am proud that his name was on the ballot paper with McSweeney and McCurtain during the black-and-tan era. His name was up front because the list was alphabetical in Cork City Hall.
I feel sorry about leaving local government and that I am effectively being forced out. I also feel sorry that we are reaching a time when, I sincerely believe, local authorities are losing many of their powers. Deputy Gilmore has outlined many of the powers that have been taken from elected members and I will not repeat them. However, there is a definite move to direct rule. Unfortunately we have direct rule in Northern Ireland. In many matters we will almost have direct rule from the Custom House. Communication will be between the Custom House and the manager, and the latter will make the decisions regarding waste management and refuse charges. The Minister has clearly signalled that refuse charges will now be by weight and that the manager will be in a position to recoup the deficit in his annual allocation by screwing the ratepayer, whether domestic or commercial.
Let us face it, the days of the rates have returned. We are back now to the state of affairs before 1977, and it is ironic that Fianna Fáil, which abolished the rates in that year to get into government, are now moving towards the reintroduction of rates at a time when they have an equally big majority. The Minister clearly flagged last week, when he announced the grants for water conservation, that he will give local authority managers their heads regarding water charges. I presume he will now introduce metering.
I have not said that.
It is implied.
It is in the pipeline.
I am almost certain that the commission examining the funding of local authorities will introduce the question of metering and water charges. Effectively it is direct rule from the Minister through his civil servants to the manager. I am hearing, not from my own council, but from councils around the country, that managers are ignoring elected members. In some cases they are becoming intolerant of them.
That has a knock-on effect on the public. People currently entering local politics are not doing so for its own sake. They see it as a stepping stone to Dáil Éireann – that is the reason many of them enter councils. Many good people are getting out because they cannot see any future, given the way things are going. Powers are now being eroded almost monthly. It is a sad thing to say, having spent so much time in local government, but I am leaving when local authorities are at their lowest ebb. The Minister's moves are increasing the influence and powers of the manager and reducing the powers of elected members.
I do not wish to hold up the debate regarding local authority funding. Over the years people entered local government in this country as I did. I thought that I could change the world, but it did not work. Over the years we have given the powers to county managers.
Perhaps the Minister will confirm to us whether he has plans to change the County Management Act 1940. The time has come for us to devolve the government of this country to give members of local authorities some power. Next year we will have local elections, and with the way people cur rently feel regarding politics, politicians and local government, I doubt that 30% of them will go out to vote. They are disillusioned regarding planning because the councils say that they have no authority over or input into it. Now the Minister is to bring to the Dáil the Local Government Bill 2003 dealing with waste management and giving managers more powers to determine charges. The same will be done with water. It was a great honour to be elected to this House, but now I cannot pretend that I am not disillusioned with what goes on here. I am sick and tired of it.
We are being regulated now from Europe. Europe is regulating the Dáil, and the Dáil is regulating local government. In this country we are being over-regulated and the people have no say. They are angry with the planning laws and the way local authorities are increasing charges. They simply cannot take any more. People will react very shortly. They will not come out to vote or take part in the political process because they are disillusioned.
The Minister is a member of a local authority and I have been in local government since 1979. I ask him whether he has ever in his life heard a county manager or finance officer say, during the estimates process, that the council would live within its budget for the year and would not need to increase some programme or other, be it on roads, housing or whatever. Why is it that every year they must spend more than they get? Has he ever heard the manager of a local authority say that the council had done well in the year concerned and kept within budget, and outline what was needed for the next year? They have to increase spending all the time to get more and more. No matter what budget one gives them, they will overspend.
We have now entered a modern situation. Could we get a proper Book of Estimates at Estimates time that lets us see where the revenue came from, where it was spent and what is happening? I brought the Book of Estimates to an accountant last year and asked him to examine it. He told me that it was the greatest riddle he had ever seen, and he has a large business and deals with many people. He said that if he were at the tax office with that kind of Estimates book, he would be thrown out the door. He said that it was all doublespeak. He could see where the council had received money from central Government, what it had spent the previous year and what it proposed to spend the next year, but a great deal is being hidden in the Book of Estimates. Why is it not released to the public in a very simple form, explaining what the council needs and on what and how it is spending its money?
Regarding the amendment before us, I do not believe that a local authority that does not set a rate should be abolished. The only people that can abolish a local authority are the voters. No commissioner should ever be sent in to run a local authority. Every local authority in the country had the opportunity to set a rate for refuse charges. Up to this year, every other place apart from the capital was paying its refuse charges. As an elected public representative, I tried to tell my constituents that if they wanted services, they would have to pay for them. Yet the first thing they threw back at me was the position in Dublin, where half the population live and where people do not have to pay charges. It is a matter for the local authority itself. If Dublin Corporation could do without the revenue, that is fine, but we could not do without it in Mayo.
The Minister takes powers as Europe has taken powers from this House. I do not believe in what the Convention on the Future of Europe is currently discussing – a European constitution. We should get rid of Europe and start again because it has taken too much power from this House.
That would be a big step.
Perhaps we could do with the money. However, we have given those in Europe too much power, and people are angry about that too – some good regulations have come from Europe, but so have some very bad ones. The Minister is doing the same by taking away powers from representatives on local councils. Many of them are nothing but talking shops of yes-men and yes-women for the managers, and that is not good for democracy.
The debate is very interesting. I will try to deal with the amendment first. A whole range of issues has been raised beyond its scope, but I accept their importance. The effect of the amendment as tabled by Deputy Morgan concerns only certain parts, and that is related to a point Deputy Gilmore raised, about which he was correct. The effect of certain sections of Part 21 of the Local Government Act 2001 is to enable the Minister to remove the council but with no option for a new election to be held following such removal until the next local elections, even if the removal takes place in the first year of the council's term.
I know from Committee Stage that the Deputy indicated he would be tabling an amendment to repeal Part 21, presumably in its entirety. I will deal with it on that basis. I believe the current system is fair and that election brings responsibility. Part 21 of the principal Act continues existing law which has been in place since 1941. These provisions enable a Minister to remove members from office but only in extreme circumstances where they have failed to perform certain statutory duties essential to the proper functioning of local government. The important point is that in over half a century only four local authorities have been removed and only one, Naas UDC, has been removed in the past 25 years. Given the way this issue is being presented by Members one would think councils were being removed on an annual basis.
They were threatened.
It is a matter for the councils whether they want to do their duty. We all have statutory functions to perform, including in this House. Local authorities are the same. The 2001 Act continues existing law and sets out the circumstances of removal from office. I considered Deputy Howlin, Deputy Gilmore's colleague, to be a very good Minister for the Environment when he had that portfolio in partnership with Fine Gael and brought in certain reforms. This was not a burning issue for either Fine Gael or the Labour Party then. I do not mean that in any negative way, but merely make the point.
They were not implemented though. They were distorted.
I do not believe Part 21 poses a threat to democracy. It is not being abused and it certainly has not been abused. It is a necessary part of the overall system of checks and balances. One of the issues raised by two Deputies who have left the Chamber but who may be back is that sometimes at local level we are the authors of our own problems. I was part of the local government system for a number of years in the early 1990s. I did not like a book of estimates produced by the county manager and wrote my own, line by line and page by page. I put it together, got it printed and arrived at the meeting with 27 copies, one for each of the officials and one for each of the elected members, to the absolute consternation of the manager and his officials. I circulated the copies and had the issue discussed. I did not get everything I wanted, but it changed the estimates process from then on. It took me a lot of time and effort to do it. I might have been wrong in some of the assumptions I made, but I was not wrong in everything I said. I equally challenged much of what the managers had set out in the estimates that year.
The Minister proposed a local development tax.
No. There was a community development fund, a very small element, which was very much supported by everybody. However, that is not the point. I make the broad point that there are mechanisms open to Deputies who are councillors to take a very active role in the estimates process. One aspect is not working. The corporate policy group, which is composed of the Chairs of the SPCs, must be consulted by the manager in the preparation of the draft budget. This is the law at the moment. I do not know of any council in the country that is actually exercising this power. The CPG may call in outside independent experts to assist and advise on this matter, but I do not know of any councils that have decided to do this. Perhaps they are not aware that this power exists and that the situation was changed in recent Acts. Elected members must use the tools which are available to them to exercise their role. That is the only way elected members can take ownership of the process. These powers are available to members, but they are not exercising them. That is partly because many council members spend too much time here and are unable to deal with issues on a weekly basis and attend SPC meetings and so on. Perhaps it is easier for Dublin members. I know it is not easy for members from other parts of the country but the result is that we are not taking ownership of the process.
There are many faults in the system. Issues have been raised by Members on which I would agree with their views. However, there is a presumption among many councillors that somebody else will do their job for them. Doing the job of politics, as most Members in this House know, is very demanding. People either get stuck into it, get to understand it and try to do something about the issues or they do not. Local councillors have seen this situation begin to improve dramatically in recent years and I hope to see it improve ultimately with full-time positions in the years ahead. That is the type of effort that will be required. I can set out various powers in law or regulations, but there is not much point if people do not exercise them. There are already substantial powers in the estimates process available to councillors which they simply do not exercise, and because they are not exercising these powers, they are not taking ownership of the whole estimate process.
The issue raised by many Deputies with regard to waste management is important but what nobody in the House has said is that for ten years, 20 years in effect because it started in the 1980s, local councillors have not grasped the nettle on the issue of waste.
They could not. They had no funding.
If they had we would not be in the crisis in which we find ourselves today. Waste collection was never an ideological issue, an argument which Deputy Higgins still makes, with which I disagree. It should not involve an ideological argument about whether a private company or a public company does it. The issue should be best value for the people we represent. What we now have is a tremendous mix of local public and private involvement in this process. The real issue is efficiency, cost effectiveness, management of resources and best value for money for taxpayers, the people we represent. I do not hold, even though I often get painted into the corner, with the idea of this being either right wing or left wing. These are not modern ideas – they are antiquated expressions. What we really need is to find the best way of doing business for the benefit of the taxpayers and of using the resources they give us over a whole range of areas.
Deputy Gilmore raised the question of the primacy of local authorities in relation to roads, an issue to which I will return. He is right in what he says, but he is presenting it in the wrong way. Local authorities had primacy within a small local authority area in the past. However, the world has changed. The Deputy cannot be seriously suggesting that major infrastructural projects which are for the benefit of the country should be undertaken bit by bit with every local authority involved in the planning process. We would be forever in a planning process and forever trying to get it done.
The Government is doing it bit by bit anyway.
We do not have the scale of 70 or 80 million people with local authority areas with two, three, four or five million people in them. We have to take some of the major infrastructural projects. I do not believe there is a move in this House or among political parties to break this up, with the result that we would get bad value for money and very difficult processes all out of kilter and out of sequence with each other. We could not do that and expect to be able to meet national requirements for major infrastructure.
The only issue on which I am being attacked is the issue of waste management where there is a crisis. I accept there is a contradictory position.
It is not the only one. The motion is clear. There is far more than that.
I have put it on the public record with regard to that issue, which is part of the Protection of the Environment Bill, that I have got to get resolution in the national interest. There is no question about that. Councillors can still deal with the totality of the issue in the estimates. If they do not accept what is being put forward they do not have to pass an estimate. I have also outlined that the chairs of the SPCs form the corporate policy group with which the manager is obliged to consult in advance of the estimates and it is open to the members to bring independent outside experts in going through the process. There are substantial levers of power, far more than in the past.
I do not propose to remove the provision that is there at present. There is the possibility that if we get the sort of reform that should take place in local government it will raise issues of local government functioning and perhaps, in a much stronger reform package, we could begin to examine the issue of not being part of central Government. That does not mean that a local authority or we in this Chamber, or any Government, can act completely irresponsibly and decide, if we do not like the figures in front of us, not to pass anything. Nobody can operate on that basis.
There are statutory and public obligations within which one must operate as an elected representative in terms maximising the use of available resources. There has been no occasion that I recall where I would not have liked more resources to do more. As Minister, of course I would like to have more resources to do more. The resources are finite and the sources for getting them are not unlimited. I would remind Deputy Higgins, and I made this clear umpteen times, that I did not present this Bill as a major reform package of local government. I went out of my way to say the opposite. What I said was that it is a fundamental principle in the context of reform. It is only one issue but is an important one and it allows the possibility of going a good deal further in the context of the reform of local government and, perhaps, the reform of this House in regard to the way we sit and order our business.
What about the moonlighting?
It will allow for that. The Deputy is one of the people who has said the Dáil should sit five days per week. If that is the case, and with all the committees sitting, it will not be possible for the Deputy or anybody else to function fully and to the best of his ability here and operate fully in a local government structure also. Do those Members who have spoken, and who over the last two or three years have been involved in the estimates process, know the regulations and the law existed to allow them to do all of this?
Yes.
I do not know of one local authority that dealt in any great detail, as a mini-cabinet, because that is what the corporate policy group was meant to be, and called in—
They are part-time.
The Deputy is beginning to support my point of view in many respects.
If the Minister were to give them a full-time mayor it would be different.
The point about it is—
Do something about it.
Being part-time as at present does not negate the ability of people if they are seriously complaining about something to do something about it. One cannot say one does not have the time to do it and then blame the system for not allowing one to be fully involved and engaged in the estimates process.
Why did the Minister not stop all the moonlighting? What about the double-jobbing barristers and publicans?
That is a matter for their professions to deal with. I have seen a change in the House since I was first came here. There was a time when many Members ran an outside occu pation in a fulsome way but that has largely disappeared.
It has not.
That is the reason I want to move to make local government a full-time occupation. Local government should be a full-time occupation for those involved in it. The demands on the local government system and the development potential of local government is clear for all to see. It is a question of whether we want to take on the challenges. During this debate Members have consistently spoken about the rights of Members. I accept that, but with rights come responsibilities. Getting rights does not mean there are soft options with regard to the issues and the challenges which have to be faced. Resources have to be found to give the public what it wants in terms of services and quality of services. Those resources are not unlimited. We cannot spend all the resources in one area, as some Members pretend when they speak about a particular issue and call for more resources. Yet they ignore the fact that we have a population of less than four million. In excess of l.7 million people are working which is a remarkable achievement. Collectively, we can generate only so much income in the State and we have to try to maximise those areas to the best of our ability and use those resources to maximise the value to the public we serve.
The other point that has been raised, and people continue to ignore it, is that the polluter pays principle underpins all EU legislation and for the most part Irish legislation in terms of how we deal with waste and other issues.
It does not identify the real polluter, it blames the householder.
I wish I had the quote in front of me because Deputy Gilmore will be interested in the committee which recently investigated water quality here and which is chaired by the president of his party, Proinsias De Rossa, MEP. He stated that one of the biggest contributing factors to poor water quality here is that we do not charge for water. This was stated by no less a figure than Proinsias De Rossa, president of the Labour Party, in the past few weeks. He was wearing a European hat when he said that but it is a legitimate and honest assessment of one aspect of it.
The Minister is taking liberties with what he said.
I am not, I had it here earlier in another context but I did not get to it. I will not be unfair to him as he is probably opposed to it, but he did make the point. He is chair of the committee that made that point. These are issues with which we have to deal. If something does not have a cost we tend not to regard it with any great merit, yet every Deputy knows we are spending billions of taxpayers' money on issues such as water quality, sewage treatment plants and so on which are important. We have to understand they are precious commodities and we have to manage them extremely well. We cannot fritter them away because the cost of producing them is enormous. There has to be a fair assessment of the issues. I hope that what I am now instigating across the spectrum over the next 12 months will bring all those issues to the fore. I do not know what the outcome will be and I am not predicting anything. One thing I do know, because every Deputy and Senator has said it to me, is that there are not enough resources available to local government. Everybody wants more. That is fair enough and I have no problem with that. I do not think any Member is saying we should reduce the health budget, the education budget or the social welfare budget. Nobody suggested that as a course of action to put more money into local government.
Reduce the tax breaks and the tax shelters.
We have largely done that, as the Deputy well knows. They have almost disappeared. We would rather people invested here than taking their resources and investing them elsewhere, as is legitimate in any international economy. To do that, the same as other economies, one has to incentivise to try to get people to get results, to get jobs and to get investment in order to raise the whole economy here. We have done that successfully, particularly during the past decades through various Governments. This Government, more than any, took the view of reducing taxation at a personal level to recreate an enterprise culture more than ever.
Now the Minister is introducing charges and aggressive taxation.
There are legitimate demands from the public for higher quality.
There is no point in introducing taxes for water, education and refuse.
That is contradicting the Deputy's position because the Deputy, legitimately, like every other Member and the other parties in this House, has gone abroad to look at local government structures. They have continually come back and asked why we cannot have the type of local government that exists in other countries and Olympic swimming pools in our villages and all the other wonderful facilities. That is fine. We will come to another argument on directly elected mayors later.
We will not.
Members forget that the level of local taxation throughout the European Continent, and largely throughout the world, certainly the western world, is substantial. It is seen by the people in those countries as the best value for money rather than all the taxation going to the central fund. They prefer to see some elements of their funding going directly to the local government system where they have direct access and can see real value on the streets and pavements and the facilities in their communities for the money they have spent. I happen to subscribe to that view.
The Minister is accepting the amendment.
Does the Minister think all this tax reduction that he continues to boast about is wrong? He cannot have it both ways.
No, because that is at a national level which generates the economy and jobs. We had an artificially high cost both from an employer's and an employee's point of view in the 1980s which culminated in bankruptcy with 18% unemployment. We have reversed that in less than ten years. Of all the percentage reductions in income tax, only 1% was introduced when Fine Gael and Labour were in Government.
That is not the full picture.
I would not negate the fact that the Deputy's party was involved in the process, but I disagree with his analysis.
I have tried to deal with the issues raised by the amendment, although it is largely a red herring in terms of this debate. In the 50 years that this mechanism has been available to Ministers for the Environment, a Minister has intervened in such a manner on only four occasions and it has happened only once in the last 25 years, in connection with Naas UDC. As matters are presently constituted, the system is fair. If we get the kind of reform I wish to see, which I hope Members on the other side of the House will support, these issues may re-emerge because I strongly believe in the primacy of local government.
However, I will not accept that those involved in the local government process will not accept their responsibilities. There is no easy get-out clause. If public life was easy there would be no point in having public representatives at local or national level. Public representatives have enormous responsibilities at local level and they should exercise them.
On the question of planning, Members demanded that the national spatial strategy be published. I delivered on that in the first few months of taking office.
It was never debated in the Dáil.
The basis of the strategy was concerned with trying to set out a spatial strategy for future development. Deputy Gilmore appears to have a problem with that.
This is not related to the amendment.
The strategy is concerned with retarding the over-growth of Dublin by re-shaping and re-emphasising and by showing bias in some elements to other areas of the country.
The strategy does not do that.
All of the regional authorities are engaged in considering the strategic planning guidelines drafted by the regions to enable us act on many of the issues Members complain of, such as the congestion and urban sprawl of Dublin.
It provides for the continued growth of Dublin.
That cannot be conducted in a microcosm.
The Minister is engaging in filibuster. Will he yield?
I am trying to respond in a fair manner to the ten to 15 Deputies who spoke to this amendment, lest I be accused of ignoring any of the issues raised. The national spatial strategy seeks to plan for the country's future development. If Deputy Gilmore does not like that he should not call for one. He cannot have it both ways.
The Minister said the regions are debating the national spatial strategy, but the House has never debated it. The Minister never introduced it to the House to allow for a cross-party debate and scrutiny. The Private Members' debate this evening deals with the decentralisation aspect of it, but it is incredible that there has been no debate on the overall strategy. Will the Minister allow Government time for a proper debate, especially as it has been so often referred to in the context of local government?
I have no difficulty in debating the national spatial strategy with Members in any forum, but the Deputy's position is contradictory. The thrust of this debate is concerned with local government while the thrust of the national spatial strategy is concerned with the local and regional elements of government.
The national spatial strategy is not related to the amendment.
In the national spatial strategy I properly place responsibility for the implementation of the core element of the strategic regional planning guidelines with members of local authorities. The chairs of the Dublin and the mid-east regions have met me and are enthusiastically involved in the process of dealing with the spatial planning of Dublin.
The members of local authorities should be allowed to make the decisions.
Deputy Gilmore cannot then complain that individual local authorities are allowed operate in a vacuum as if nobody else exists. In this instance, real decision-making processes are in place, as is the real empowerment of local government and the potential to develop spatially, not only in respect of Dublin but for various other parts of the country.
The Minister toured the country to debate the national spatial strategy.
That is correct. Am I to be criticised because I held nine or ten public meetings around the country?
The Minister is answerable to the House.
I am always happy to attend the House and answer to Members on anything for which I am responsible. That is part of the democratic process.
The Minister is engaged in a filibuster.
I disagree.
It is a filibuster on top of a guillotine.
I listened to the Deputies who spoke on this amendment. The debate has lasted well over an hour. I have tried to respond to their concerns. Am I to be criticised for that? If Deputy Morgan wishes, he may reply.
We were all careful with our time when contributing to this amendment. I had intended to call a vote on it but decided against in the interest of proceeding with a debate. I thank my colleagues for supporting the amendment.
Unfortunately, the Minister appears to be rejecting the amendment, thereby giving up the opportunity to introduce real democracy to local government. It appears he does not wish to curtail the autocratic powers of county managers, nor does he wish to give local communities some democracy and control over their affairs.
I call the Minister's bluff on the question of local democracy. If he does not accept the amendment and allow local authorities to have some say and democracy, his words on empowering local democracy will count for nothing. With rights come responsibilities. Local authorities should be given responsibilities. If they do not measure up their peers can judge them. Why should the Minister lord over them by imposing direct rule? We have seen enough direct rule in one section of this country and we do not need it in this State.
The threatening hold of the Minister and his Department over local authorities is unfair. Will the Minister agree to extend this debate to enable us consider the question of directly elected mayors and local authority chairs? It is unfair that we have not had the opportunity to debate this aspect.
While not many local authorities have been removed, the threat of removal is in place. I have seen members of the Minister's party quake in fear that their power and privileges at local level might be removed if they did not support draconian increases in charges, for example, the refuse tax. The Minister has a crisis with waste management because the Government is not serious about introducing a real waste management proposal. I look forward to the debate on this aspect when we consider the mis-named Protection of the Environment Bill. The Minister is not serious about waste when it is possible to find in any supermarket a doughnut placed on a foam tray and wrapped in plastic. That is allowed by legislation.
That does not find favour with me.
If that is the case, the Minister should do something about it.
I am trying to.
There would then be much less material to go to landfills.
EU packaging regulations prevented me doing it.
The reuse and recycling programmes are not remotely sufficient, which is why we have a waste crisis. The problem is not that people are not paying. Similarly, the Minister could make a few simple changes to the planning laws to save billions of gallons a year in Dublin alone of the clean water produced with excellence by local authorities. However, his Department will not introduce the measures.
I provided €118 million the other day which will save over 7 million gallons a year.
That is fine, but billions of gallons of treated water could be saved by changing the building regulations governing the design of homes.
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle
As it is now 6 p.m. I am required to put the following question in accordance with an order of the Dáil of this day: "That Report Stage is hereby completed and the Bill is hereby passed."
Question put.
Tá
|
Ahern, Michael.Andrews, Barry.Ardagh, Seán.Aylward, Liam.Boyle, Dan.Brady, Johnny.Brady, Martin.Browne, John.Callanan, Joe.Callely, Ivor.Carey, Pat.Carty, John.Cassidy, Donie.Collins, Michael.Cooper-Flynn, Beverley.Coughlan, Mary.Cregan, John.Cuffe, Ciarán.Cullen, Martin.Curran, John.Davern, Noel.de Valera, Síle.Dempsey, Noel.Dempsey, Tony.Dennehy, John.Devins, Jimmy.Ellis, John.Finneran, Michael.Fitzpatrick, Dermot.Fleming, Seán.Glennon, Jim.Gogarty, Paul.Gormley, John. |
Grealish, Noel.Hanafin, Mary.Haughey, Seán.Hoctor, Máire.Jacob, Joe.Keaveney, Cecilia.Kelleher, Billy.Kelly, Peter.Killeen, Tony.Kirk, Seamus.Lenihan, Brian.Lenihan, Conor.Martin, Micheál.McDaid, James.McDowell, Michael.McEllistrim, Thomas.McGrath, Finian.McGuinness, John.Moloney, John.Moynihan, Donal.Moynihan, Michael.Mulcahy, Michael.Nolan, M.J.Ó Cuív, Éamon.Ó Fearghaíl, Seán.O'Connor, Charlie.O'Dea, Willie.O'Donnell, Liz.O'Donovan, Denis.O'Flynn, Noel.O'Keeffe, Batt.O'Keeffe, Ned. Tá–continued |
O'Malley, Tim.Parlon, Tom.Power, Peter.Power, Seán.Ryan, Eamon.Sargent, Trevor.Smith, Brendan. |
Smith, Michael.Twomey, Liam.Wallace, Dan.Wallace, Mary.Walsh, Joe.Wilkinson, Ollie.Woods, Michael.Wright, G. V. |
Níl
|
Allen, Bernard.Blaney, Niall.Breen, James.Breen, Pat.Broughan, Thomas P.Bruton, Richard.Burton, Joan.Connaughton, Paul.Connolly, Paudge.Costello, Joe.Coveney, Simon.Crawford, Seymour.Crowe, Seán.Deasy, John.Deenihan, Jimmy.Durkan, Bernard J.Enright, Olwyn.Gilmore, Eamon.Gregory, Tony.Hayes, Tom.Healy, Seamus.Healy-Rae, Jackie.Higgins, Joe.Higgins, Michael D.Hogan, Phil.Howlin, Brendan.Kenny, Enda. |
Lynch, Kathleen.McCormack, Padraic.McGinley, Dinny.McGrath, Paul.McHugh, Paddy.McManus, Liz.Mitchell, Gay.Mitchell, Olivia.Morgan, Arthur.Murphy, Gerard.Naughten, Denis.Neville, Dan.Ó Caoláin, Caoimhghín.Ó Snodaigh, Aengus.O'Keeffe, Jim.O'Shea, Brian.O'Sullivan, Jan.Pattison, Seamus.Penrose, Willie.Perry, John.Rabbitte, Pat.Ring, Michael.Ryan, Seán.Sherlock, Joe.Shortall, Róisín.Stagg, Emmet.Stanton, David.Upton, Mary. |
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Hanafin and Kelleher; Níl, Deputies Durkan and Stagg
Question declared carried.
As the Bill is considered by virtue of Article 20.2.2º of the Constitution to be a Bill initiated in the Dáil, it will be sent to the Seanad.