Vol. 751 No. 3
I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."
I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle for bringing the proceedings to order. My Bill is designed to foster more transparency and constitutes a minor reform to the application of public administration across the country. What we have seen this morning has been disgraceful and has degraded the Chamber.
The Deputy is right.
Order, please.
Now that we have Friday sittings, the Government can say that the Dáil regularly sits on Fridays.
Rarely.
The truth is that there is only one Minister in attendance. To their credit, there are also a number of Government backbenchers.
There are two Ministers.
No, there is one Minister and one Minister of State.
Yes, the Chief Whip. We have no Order of Business, Leaders' Questions, questions to a Minister, votes or Topical Issues and one can only raise a point of order with great difficulty. We suspended twice even before we got the show on the road this morning. It costs €90,000 to hold a three-hour sham sitting. This figure was provided to the Committee of Public Accounts yesterday.
We only sat until 5.50 p.m. yesterday.
It is a disgrace and an indictment of the Government. If we are to have Friday sittings, have a real sitting of the Dáil.
Make it meaningful.
Have the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and every member of the Government attend.
Reform.
This sitting is about optics in order that the Government can claim the Dáil sits on Fridays. Although we are making a legislative input, this sitting is not meaningful.
Deputy Kevin Humphreys is the only member of the Labour Party present.
If the Government wants to promote value for money and engage in real reform, let us have proper Friday sittings instead of locking down all of the Opposition. We will use this platform, but the Government will not and, as a result, will come out second best. In their hearts and souls, the Members opposite agree that this is a sham sitting. They are nodding in agreement and I hope they will act accordingly.
What does this have to do with the Bill?
I commend the Office of the Ombudsman and the Ombudsman, Ms Emily O'Reilly, who is providing an outstanding service. No Deputy who has had dealings with her office could claim that they were anything but good. We need to promote the case for granting the Ombudsman further powers and for fostering and enhancing her role.
The main aspect of my Bill has affected me and other public representatives across the country, including Deputies. We are constantly told by people that they have contacted their local authorities with queries or requests but have not heard back. It is not good enough in this day and age. Local authorities point out that they adhere to their customer charters, but such charters are not good enough. The Bill can be enhanced and amended if the Government sees fit to give it more teeth.
We must own up to the fact that local authorities do not engage adequately enough with sections of society. Responsibility for this falls on public representatives, who find that they must chase up responses on behalf of members of the public and ourselves. This is unnecessary, wastes time and leads to duplication, resulting in a cost to the system. How often have people contacted Deputies or local authority members with this problem?
My Bill is simple legislation. Yesterday, I listened with interest to the Minister of State, Deputy Brian Hayes's comments on the Croke Park agreement, which is relevant to local authorities. He made some correct points concerning reforms. The Bill is reforming legislation. I welcome the Minister of State's indication that the Government is on the road to realising necessary reforms in public services and local authorities this year. He made all the right sounds, but we will need to hold him, the Government, the social partnership process and State agencies to account for the delivery of necessary reforms.
Subsequently, I listened to the manager of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, one of the largest local authorities in the country. On national radio this morning, he stated that he had not been able to realise what he termed some fairly minor changes - the lengthening of the working week from 32.5 hours to 35 hours and the standardisation of leave arrangements - under the Croke Park agreement because it could only move at the pace set by the slowest institution of the State that was minded to change.
Through this legislation, the Croke Park agreement and any other legislation, we must set our minds to bringing about real reform. The Bill sets out to make a reasonable achievement.
It provides that where a member of the public or a public representative writes to or otherwise contacts a local authority, he or she must receive, within a reasonable period of time, an official acknowledgment of that communication, followed by - within another reasonable timeframe, that is, several working days - a substantive reply to the issue raised. This is already happening in certain sections of some local authorities. It is compulsory, for example, in planning departments, because planning is governed under legislation. In the case of my local authority, the housing department has a formalised system for acknowledging correspondence and issuing replies. However, it does not happen across the entire system. If we are going down the road of streamlining local government, we must introduce an effective system of communication between local authorities throughout the State and the public they serve.
The Ombudsman can fulfil many roles. One of them relates to the legislation which dominated the commencement of proceedings this morning, namely, the Water Services (Amendment) Bill. I listened to the Minister's interview yesterday on my local radio station, Limerick's Live 95FM, in which he named Deputies Ó Cuív, Martin Ferris and me-----
Did the Minister forget about me?
-----as persons engaged in misinformation, hypocrisy and irresponsibility on this issue and showing an entire disregard for environmental pollution. He said the Fianna Fáil Party was engaged in law breaking on the issue. I reject that charge outright. It is most unfair and I call on him to withdraw it.
I was elected to this House in 2007 and re-elected last year. As such, I have a mandate to represent the people of County Limerick and to give voice to the issues which concern them. The reality is that they, like people throughout the country, have concerns regarding the standards which will apply in respect of the inspection and registration of septic tanks. The Minister did not name-check the IFA or the ICMSA, for example-----
Or me.
-----nor accuse them of being engaged in misinformation, hypocrisy and irresponsible behaviour or of breaking the law. He omitted Deputy Mattie McGrath from his comments. The IFA and the ICSMA are saying exactly what we are saying.
Are they really?
Yes. Like those organisations, we are asking a legitimate question about the standards that will apply in respect of the inspection regime for septic tanks.
When pressed by the interviewer, Joe Nash, the Minister could not define a "low-income family". The Minister insisted there would be no hidden charges arising from the registration and inspection regime. All the inspection will seek to discover, he claimed, is whether a septic tank is working.
On a point of order, I understood the business of the House today was the Second Stage debate on a Private Members' Bill. Deputy Collins seems intent to revisit the debate on the Water Services (Amendment) Bill.
That is not a point of order. However, I remind Deputy Collins to focus on the legislation that is before the House.
The Minister has insisted that his only concern is to ensure private water treatment systems are working. The question, however - this is the crux of the matter, as we have pointed out from the beginning - is what standard will apply in this regard. That is the question we are reasonably asking. The Minister said that people should tell the truth. That is what we are doing, but the Minister is telling us nothing. There is a vacuum of proper information.
The Minister went on to say in that interview that he intended to treat the inspection regime in a light-touch fashion. However, it is not he who will be carrying out individual inspections. That responsibility is to be handed to an independent organisation whose representatives the Minister has refused to allow us to bring before the Oireachtas Committee on Environment, Transport, Culture and the Gaeltacht to outline the standards that will apply in respect of inspections. The Minister further claimed that people in rural areas do not pay for water and sewerage treatment. I do not know what happens in Carlow and Kilkenny, but when people in Limerick connect to Limerick County Council's water supply, they must pay to do so.
They pay in Tipperary too.
And in Kerry.
They are also obliged to pay development charges which go towards subsidising the cost of urban wastewater treatment systems.
I roundly reject what the Minister has said about me, Deputies Ó Cuív and Martin Ferris and, by implication, Mattie McGrath-----
Definitely not by implication.
Only by implication.
-----in regard to a public meeting that was held in my constituency some days ago. I challenge him to join me in another interview on Limerick's Live 95FM, the Minister's local radio station or Pat Kenny's radio programme. Rather than a one-on-one interview where his claims about me and certain colleagues could go unchallenged, I challenge the Minister to participate in a live debate. I am seeking to represent the people of County Limerick. I do not seek to act irresponsibly, in a hypocritical fashion or to misinform the people I represent. I am not into law breaking. The Minister was out of order in making that charge and I hope he will withdraw it.
My party is fully in favour of a reasonable inspection regime. We want to ensure people have access to clean water in all areas. That is often lost in the debate. Returning to the Bill before us, there is scope for the Office of the Ombudsman to have a role in respect of appeals to findings of the regime for the registration and inspection of septic tanks. Similarly, one could assign a role to the Ombudsman in respect of the household charge. As it is, a person may bring a case to the Ombudsman where, for example, there is a dispute regarding an entitlement to mortgage interest supplement. We have been notified of unfinished housing estates throughout the State which are not included in the county-by-county schedules setting out those developments in respect of which a waiver applies.
The Bill we have brought forward today seeks to broaden the remit of the Ombudsman in respect of existing legislative provisions, including the Water Services (Amendment) Bill and those relating to the household charge. I accept that there are many fine people working in local authorities throughout the State. It is not my intention to cast a plague on everybody's house. However, there is undoubtedly room for improvement in certain areas. The Ombudsman's office must be afforded an opportunity to become more purposeful in that regard. It already deals with complaints from members of the public who have not received due recognition of their communications to local authorities.
I commend this short Bill to the House. It seeks to bring a greater sense of purpose to bear on local authorities in their dealings with the public and to ensure value for money in the services they provide. Maladministration must be rooted out. There is a role for the Croke Park agreement and the Office of the Ombudsman in streamlining local authorities and tackling that maladministration.
I propose to share time with Deputy Sandra McLellan.
That is agreed.
I compliment Deputy Niall Collins on introducing this important Bill. I did not get involved in the earlier toing and froing across the floor.
We are not going to go back to it.
It is unfortunate we do not have the opportunity to raise the issue this morning. Deputy Ó Cuív used his very short time in the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government-----
To do what?
-----to bring to light the situation regarding fines and the documentation he has produced this morning.
It could do absolutely nothing.
Before Christmas I seconded a proposal that representatives of the EPA come to the House to explain the regulations to us. We will go into a committee next Wednesday morning to discuss a plethora of amendments-----
Let us wait until then.
-----to the Water Services (Amendment) Bill without having the information available to us. It is a bad day for this House and public administration in the State when we cannot do this.
That matter can be taken up.
As a new Deputy, I am very disappointed at how business is conducted here. It would not happen in a local authority because the councillors would not allow it.
I compliment Deputy Niall Collins on introducing the Bill which would form the basis for a more accountable and accessible local government system for both elected representatives and the general public. Positive aspects of the Bill are that it would ensure members of the public or elected representatives who contacted a local authority in writing would receive a written acknowledgement of receipt and could look forward to a full reply within 20 working days. The Bill would also allow for recourse to the Ombudsman, which would be an important course of action as it would ensure accountability and the Ombudsman would keep a schedule of complaints made. Action should be taken against local authorities which continually offend or specific members of management who are simply serving to block responses instead of giving substantive replies to the public and elected representatives. I offer a word of caution: simply guaranteeing a response within 20 days would not guarantee that the required action would be taken. In many cases the original written correspondence from the public requires the local authority to take action on a particular issue. A note informing a councillor or member of the public that work would not be proceeding on a particular issue such as traffic calming, road works or the construction of public housing would not suffice. We need to ensure the Bill would not become a substitute for real action on issues that concern the public and elected representatives.
It is ironic that Fianna Fáil should now see it as necessary to introduce the Bill considering what happened when Mr. Noel Dempsey was Minister for the Environment and Local Government. Successive Ministers with responsibility for local government eroded its powers. During my time the powers regarding taxi regulation and fares, waste management and health were removed from democratically elected councillors. Powers were given to management and bureaucracy was strengthened with the introduction of the post of director of services. I ask the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government to ascertain why local authorities need a manager, a director of services and senior executive officers. There should be a senior executive manager in charge of a local authority to ensure we receive positive replies to our representations. All this served to take power away from the public and those they elected. It is time for this trend to be reversed and I hope the Bill would mark the start of that fight to claw back powers. It must be seen as part of an overall debate on local government.
One of the challenges facing local authorities is presented by the reduction in staffing levels - some have lost up to 30% of their staff. This, of course, is the direct result of the policies pursued by successive Governments. Until last year Fianna Fáil was only too willing to cut back on public spending and reduce the numbers working in the public sector, thus curtailing the work being done by staff in local authority offices. It was mainly front-line staff who were taken out.
I ask the Minister to address the inflated salaries of city and county managers. In recent days we heard about the salaries and number of days leave available to managerial staff and I again appeal to the Government to address the issue. If the Bill is passed, with further deadlines and demands being made on decreasing numbers of staff, it will only serve to make messengers of elected representatives and further frustrate the public.
The programme for Government outlines a commitment to local government reform, yet we still wait for the Minister to start that debate. We have tried to open it up at Question Time since the start of this Dáil. My party wants to play a positive role in it and the sooner it starts the better. We have always promoted the strengthening of local democracy and accountability. This means putting those affected by decisions at the centre of the decision-making process. It means devolving power to the most local level. In practice, it means allowing local authorities to be given power to draft waste management plans and make planning and development decisions without too much interference from the top in order to benefit all those in our communities, not just developers and those with money. It is also important that the layers of bureaucracy that continue to stifle local democracy are removed and that the corridors of power are opened up to the public. Councillors who are directly elected need to have real powers.
Local government reform is on the agenda in the Northern Ireland Assembly and my party continues to play a positive role in the process. We may not get everything we want because ours is one of four parties, but we have tried to make a positive impact. Lessons can be learned from the process of political reform in the North. It is ironic that planning and other powers are being devolved to local authorities in the North, while 90 miles down the road the Government in this state continues to centralise power. I have found it very frustrating as an elected member of a local authority to watch power being centralised to the Custom House.
The Government has further undermined local democracy by failing to introduce legislation to regulate the collection of household waste and allowing a race to the bottom to continue in that industry. It also failed to accept our amendment to the Environment (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2011 which would have given the power to elected representatives to draw up and implement waste management strategies. That role was taken away by Mr. Noel Dempsey.
Following the recent budget the Government decided to cut local government funding by €166 million. The gap in funding is to be made up by the new household charge. This is dependent on a 100% collection rate of the charge. One county manager pointed out that it was questionable whether this would happen. This is the modern day equivalent of the poll tax introduced by the former British Prime Minister, Mrs. Thatcher, which had to be scrapped and modified. We will continue actively to oppose this charge and will be working with the public to overturn this regressive, unworkable and unjust charge.
While welcoming the Bill, Sinn Féin sees it as only the start of a long overdue debate on local government reform in the State.
I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Bill and commend Deputy Niall Collins for introducing it. It is very relevant, particularly at a time of increased demand, to the role of the public service in serving the public. In some ways, it also raises the issue of the role of public representatives and, in a broader sense, touches on the role of local government and its possible reform.
I am sure every Member of the House has considerable experience of dealing with local authorities when making representations on behalf of constituents or the public in general on various matters. It can at times be an arduous task and, like most, there have been occasions when I have had to wait not weeks but months to get a simple reply. The maze of offices, positions and titles is astounding. I have had to wait 14 weeks to receive an acknowledgement of receipt of a housing inquiry. Regardless of whether that was down to staff shortages or a lack of interest, it was totally unacceptable. The difficulty with this is that for each one of those representations there is someone who is waiting, often anxiously, or under great pressure or stress, because of the nature of the inquiry, for an answer. We all know of such cases. The Bill would go some way towards having a timeline for such communications. Local residents and communities would have some notion of when they could expect a reply and in many instances a reply, even in the negative, is enough to progress the issue. It is certainly better than no reply and can often steer people in an alternative direction where they might pursue their issue.
Implementation of this Bill would, at least in theoretical terms, make a big difference to the public service element of local authorities. I have no doubt that an improved responsiveness would lead to increased engagement and participation by the general public. A similar initiative for other Departments could be considered. In practical terms, one wonders about the current capacity of local authorities to deliver on the outworking of the Bill.
As a former county councillor, I am aware that in Cork there has been a considerable reduction in staff and funding for the local authority. Resources are at a premium and this is not helped by the recruitment embargo, a situation which I am sure will worsen in the next month or so as retirement incentives are availed of. There is a danger that this legislation will be impossible to implement. There is without doubt a need to have a serious look at the role local authorities play in general, how they are structured and funded, the services they deliver and the way they deliver them.
Sinn Féin has called for a major transformation of local government to include increased councillors' powers, appropriate local control over the provision of services and greater local control over budgets and financing of local government. This would include the ability to collect tax revenue. We have called for the restoration or introduction of councillors' prior powers over planning, housing, transportation and waste management and to correspondingly limit managers' powers as well as reform of local government structures to make it more accountable. This should include direct election of chairpersons and mayors, who would assume many aspects of the council management oversight role.
The public has a right to local government that is representative and responsive. The Bill would go some way to addressing that issue, but it is essential that we have some sort of real debate and movement on the issue of local government reform. The Government has promised a new way of doing politics. The programme for Government contains specific commitments to local government reform. It states:
We are committed to a fundamental reorganisation of local governance structures to allow for devolution of much greater decision-making to local people. We will give local communities more control over transport and traffic, economic development educational infrastructure and local responses to crime and local health care needs.
It remains to be seen just how committed the Government is to this issue. It would surely be welcome, again in terms of participation and engagement, if significant progress could be made in this regard. This, in conjunction with adequate investment and the kind of protocols and policies as exampled in the Bill before the House today, could have a real and meaningful bearing on how we conduct government in Ireland in the future.
Opening events in the House this morning indicate that reform is very much on the agenda in order that when issues arise outside of Friday or normal Dáil sitting times they can be addressed.
I was co-opted on to Dublin City Council for the past few months of the previous term and speak from that point of view. Like other Members, I have extensive contact with local authorities. I share the frustration expressed in relation to local authority meetings at which many people speaking on the same topic often say the same thing but in many ways. Often people table issues by way of emergency motion expecting that to be the way forward but they simply remain on paper. At one meeting I attended a motion on schools was passed. I wondered at the time what the local authority had to do with schools yet an hour was spent discussing an issue in respect of which it had no role.
While this Bill deals with a particular issue, I would like to make some general points, in particular in regard to reform of local government in accordance with the programme for Government. The Government has set up a group entitled the Independent Local Government Efficiency Implementation Group, which as the Minister indicated in response to a parliamentary question, has met a number of times and will report at regular intervals. Perhaps the Minister will indicate at what stage the group is in terms of its work. Also, are community groups involved given they are the residents and groups whose lives are most impacted by the work of the local authority? The Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Burton, has stated that there will be a review of community employment schemes. I have asked that there be a random selection of participants on the schemes who could then have a direct input into the review. Likewise, a random selection of residents or community groups who are directly involved with the local authority could also be allowed to have an input into its review.
As in all organisations and institutions, there are people employed in the local authorities who do not work to the best of their ability or in a satisfactory manner. Dublin City Council - I will start with a negative and then move on to the positive - has been involved in controversial matters which have caused major difficulties for communities and in respect of which it was not seen to have been pro-community, including housing, services for the homeless and infrastructure. In my constituency of Dublin Central, there is repeated flooding. While the cause of this is known, little is being done about it. We all remember the floods of 24 October. Another problem is that of pyrite. Dublin City Council supported some very controversial planning applications and decisions which were to the detriment of the relevant communities. There has been neglect of areas and public private partnership has collapsed. Communities long neglected were given hope by public private partnerships, in respect of which there were wonderful plans for housing, community and youth facilities, landscaping and so on but these hopes have been dashed.
We need a task force to address the problem of litter, which is out of control in particular areas. An astronomical amount of money has been wasted on the incinerator and Dublin City Council has been lacking in respect of areas of conservation and preservation. I am sure this is not only happening in Dublin. Moore Street is a national disgrace rather than a national memorial to the men and women of 1916. It has been allowed to go to rack and ruin. It is hoped that in the time remaining before the 2016 celebrations, the Departments of the Environment, Community and Local Government and Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht can put in place a proper plan to ensure it will be a fitting memorial.
In spite of those negatives, I acknowledge the Dublin City Council staff with whom I am in contact daily. Those staff are located in the offices in Sean McDermot Street, Parnell Street and in Cabra. I have a good relationship with staff in the homelessness and other sections. The staff with whom I have been dealing are committed and dedicated and work to the best of their ability. Some of them are currently doing double the amount of work as many of their colleagues who have retired or resigned have not been replaced. This week, I attended four local community meetings. The local authority staff also in attendance had the answers to the questions raised at a previous meeting some two months ago and have been following up on those issues.
I will outline some of the positives for Dublin City Council, including the library service, culture and the arts, parks and landscape, the manner in which it supports local neighbourhoods through the promotion of the environment and local events such as summer projects, playgrounds, sports officers, the bike scheme, which has been a great success and the recent use of public spaces. Also, it has been involved in some innovative housing schemes, including Wolfe Tone Square and the senior citizen housing in Aughrim Street, Clareville and North Wall. Before I became involved in politics I was on several committees, including the Young Peoples Facilities and Services Fund and the Cavan Centre which included representatives from the local authority, whose work was outstanding. There are many positives but the negatives must be tackled. This is at a time when local authority funding is being cut.
For me, reform must be meaningful and accountable. Local authorities must be professional in tackling the issues facing communities. This can be done by working with communities and dealing with situations before they become emergencies. Community must be at the centre and there must be meaningful and not confrontational consultation involved. I support the Bill in terms of accountability. I point out that on each occasion I, as a public representative, have put a question to or contacted an office it did not take 15 or 20 days for me to get a response: I got a quick response. The difficulty is that people are unable to get a response to their questions and must resort to their public representative in this regard. Sometimes the response received is not a reply to the question asked or the answer is vague or general. This is the reason the inclusion of the word "substantive" in the Bill is very important.
Section 3(c) refers to when “the local authority does not have access to the information that is required in order to provide a substantive reply to the request sought in the written communication”. There is a need to include a provision to the effect that the local authority will undertake to get it, to prevent the case going to the Ombudsman because that office already has enough work to do and this would be adding to it. In this context, Members are considering the Bill at a time when the number of local authority staff has been reduced. I do not favour the spending of an inordinate amount of time by local authority staff on following up questions were this to mean front-line services would be neglected. There must be a balance struck in this regard.
The issue of where power rests within a local authority must be addressed because in some local authorities power is being taken from the elected representatives. I will conclude by noting the Minister has proposed a greater alignment of community and enterprise functions with the local government system in accordance with the programme of Government. He should indicate precisely what is meant by this because there have been attacks on and has been an undermining of community development, which is a shame.
Essentially, a system of local government that is citizen-friendly is needed. For too long, Ireland has had a system that has essentially turned public representatives into middlemen and women who do their constituents' bidding. This particular system worked very well for decades, for example, for the party which has introduced this Bill. For as long as people believe they require a broker and are unable to do something themselves, one has positioned the public representative in such a way as to have in place a clientelist system that is the least citizen-friendly system it is possible to have.
While I am in favour of people being responded to in a timely and appropriate fashion, certain points must be recognised. One must recognise that much of our system is threadbare and lopsided. I published a short document on public service reform from which I will provide some small examples of the lopsided and threadbare nature of the system. Areas that have expanded rapidly in recent years have a very different profile from counties that have a reasonably static population and where the pace of development has grown slowly over decades. For example, the area encompassed by Mayo County Council which has a staff of 1,100 has a population of 130,000, while the area encompassed by Kildare County Council which has a staff of 925 has a population of 209,000. One cannot expect equality of service if there is inequality in the number of staff available to provide such services. The worst staffed county council is Meath County Council, also within the commuter belt, which has half the staff complement and 30,000 more people than its equivalent in County Mayo.
I again make the point that services are lopsided and neither the early retirement scheme nor the recruitment embargo is targeted or nuanced to deal with this. In other words, it is possible that half the staff of Meath County Council will seek early retirement, while all the staff of Kerry County Council will remain. Such outcomes will not lead to the possibility of having equality of service. Ireland's local government system was designed in the 19th century. I note that in respect of many of our institutional systems we are not very good at building things, be they buildings or the architecture that should go with institutions. Essentially, we tweak rather than fundamentally reform them. I seek fundamental reform of the local government system.
As for the detail of the Bill, there are areas within the local government system in which there is a legal requirement to give responses within targeted timelines. For example, in the planning system, there is a legal requirement whereby one must receive a response within a certain timeframe in respect of unauthorised developments. However, even this requirement is highly unsatisfactory because matters can get bogged down in queues in the courts. There are ways of doing things whereby information can be placed publicly on a website, on which people will be able to find the requisite information. In other words, while not everyone must be responded to, a range of information is available with a number that people can look up. This facilitates people to work smarter and helps to avoid staff getting bogged down in giving replies to the effect that something would be desirable. Incidentally, having been elected to a local authority, it took me six months to discover what it meant when I received a response from the county engineer stating it would be desirable to do whatever I had sought in respect of roads and so on. I asked what the word "desirable" meant in this context and discovered that in the lexicon of the county council it meant the official giving the response would like to do whatever was being sought but lacked the money to so do. I do not want such replies because they mislead.
Similarly, 7,000 people, individuals or families, are on the housing waiting list in County Kildare. I could spend every hour of the day every day of the week engaged in writing on their behalf and receiving the same reply to the effect that the person concerned will be considered in conjunction with all the other applicants. I could cite the three paragraphs that typically emanate from my local authority and all others. What needs to happen instead is that we need to put in place a process to develop a system under which people can be housed. Obviously, Ireland is in dire straits and I acknowledge that this is a separate issue, but there is a mismatch between houses that are in NAMA and the number of people in rented accommodation. In this context and with respect, I do not welcome stunts like FixMyStreet.ie. For example, in 2007 Kildare County Council had €28 million to spend on roads and footpaths, while this year it has €10 million. As it was unable to do all the things that needed to be done when it had €28 million available to it, one should not give the impression that something can be done when realistically it cannot because that simply is conning people. Moreover, it gives the impression that people are not doing their job and are wasting money when that is not always the case.
I am all in favour of getting value for money in local government and other systems and believe radical reform of the local government system is needed. I would phase out the county council system and have no problem in suggesting Ireland needs perhaps three large regional authorities - we do not need to be looking at four provinces. Such regional authorities would have the potential to make procurement savings, could do things from a strategic point of view and link issues such as land use and transportation planning. In such a scenario, one would devolve a range of powers from the Oireachtas to the areas in which such services are actually delivered. However, I am also in favour of having a district council model to underpin this reform, in which communities would be assisted to shape the place in which they are living and in which there is a good interface between the citizen and the local authority. The members of that authority would represent an area to which they had committed, in which they were living, which they wished to shape and in which they wished to be involved.
I have been a member of both a town council and a county council. The former was the most recent such council established in the State. Only four such councils have been established in the history of the State, all of which originated as town commissioners and consequently were at the lower level in respect of responsibility. As a town council, we were able to get a lot done as a community facilitator. Incidentally, one will not save anything by abolishing some of the aforementioned town councils because they are funded by a town charge. However, if the interface between the local authority and the community is working, one can do things to deliver in shaping the place in which people live and use the concept of voluntarism in all communities, which is one of Ireland's real highlights.
Our institutions, including our political institutions, let us down because they are not matched against the kind of society we are. Consequently, we could put our best foot forward through major reform. I do not oppose the Bill.
I am concerned with regard to the additional obligations being imposed on the Ombudsman. I am also concerned with people being under the impression that they can get things done simply as a result of their being sent letters. We need to engage in a much more fundamental reform of the local government system.
I thank Deputy Niall Collins and the other Members who have contributed to the debate so far for their interest in the matter of local authority public administration. I have certain sympathy with the comments they made in respect of local authorities answering queries. For local government to be effective, efficient and focused locally, it must be allowed have a wide level of operational discretion. This is not possible where the most basic operational matters are prescribed in primary legislation. If public representatives are dissatisfied with the level of service available, it is open to them, as elected members, to bring the matter to the attention of the relevant council. A local authority's corporate policy group would be the appropriate forum in which to discuss such issues, particularly if elected members are of the view that corporate action plans, customer service charters or citizens' charters require review or if there is any weakness in the system in the context of obtaining replies to representations made. If councillors are unhappy with the level of service provided, there is a mechanism in place to allow them to deal with that issue. I will, however, ask local authorities to review their customer service charters in order that the inconsistencies relating to the issuing of replies might be addressed.
For the local government system to operate satisfactorily, a balanced and common-sense approach must be adopted. It is not my role or that of my Department to micro-manage local authorities. This flies in the face of everything for which I stand in the context of the devolution of responsibility. In addition, the Oireachtas should not prescribe how basic operational functions are undertaken. There may be a role for centrally-set performance standards for local authorities. However, primary legislation is not the way to proceed in this regard. A universal standard, set down in law, of 20 days for the issuing of a substantive reply would run the risk of reducing the scope for more rigorous requirements and better performance where this is appropriate. In addition, it would not allow for longer timeframes in circumstances where more complex issues might require to be addressed.
I must stress that efficient and effective service to the public is one of the guiding principles informing the local government reform project and the local government efficiency review. In fact, the local government efficiency review group, in its report of July 2010, acknowledged the commitment of local authorities to quality customer services. While the aims of the Bill could be seen as being consistent with this approach, I am concerned that what is proposed is too prescriptive in the context of the gamut of services provided by local authorities. In certain contentious areas of policy, and where policy is in the course of development, the prescriptive approach to which I refer runs a serious risk of damaging the efficient and effective delivery of the full range of services to the public. Responding to correspondence is only one of the services local authorities provide in their communities and it must not take precedence over other more front-line services.
The objectives of the Bill are best delivered through clarity in and adherence to local authorities' customer service charters and actions plans. In this regard, county and city councils generally commit to acknowledging correspondence within three to seven days and to providing substantive replies within three to four weeks. These timeframes are generally compatible with the proposals in the Bill. Crucially, however, they have been set locally having regard to specific circumstances. As stated, I am prepared to ensure local authorities will be informed with regard to reviewing their customer service plans or citizens' charters in order to ensure their commitments in respect of this matter will be honoured.
Deputy Niall Collins referred to the Ombudsman. I am sure he will not object if I state this is a welcome U-turn on the part of Fianna Fáil, which opposed the establishment of the office of Ombudsman when the late John Boland, a former Minister for the Public Service, sought to introduce it.
This is new Fianna Fáil.
The Minister is causing trouble again.
Fianna Fáil also opposed the appointment of the first person who held the position of Ombudsman. As I have stated, therefore, what is proposed in the Bill represents a welcome U-turn. I am delighted there are new recruits from Fianna Fáil to the cause of encouraging an independent assessment of people's representations.
Certain people from the Government side are missing from the Chamber today.
Síle de Valera appointed the first Ombudsman as chairman of the SAC appeals advisory board.
The provisions of the Bill in regard to the Ombudsman are unnecessary because members of the public and public representatives who are dissatisfied with the services of a local authority or who are concerned about maladministration already have recourse to the Ombudsman. Specific reference in the Bill to the Ombudsman could be also counter-productive for public administration as a whole. It creates the risk of an increase in relatively minor complaints which would be impractical to handle and would remove the Ombudsman's focus from more important areas in respect of which redress is required. Furthermore, premature recourse to the Ombudsman would negate best practice in customer care. The focus should be on the relevant business unit resolving customer care issues in the first instance, followed by recourse to the official with responsibility for corporate customer services and involving the Ombudsman only as a last resort.
The Bill, if enacted, could be used to circumvent the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act in advance of the reforms set out in the programme for Government. I am also concerned that it seeks to impose specific statutory standards in one part only of the public service. Any initiative along the lines proposed would need to be developed in a holistic manner for the wider public service.
In respect of dealing with queries and correspondence from public representatives in particular, all local authorities have arrangements in place to provide regular briefings to such representatives in respect of their areas. If they are not doing so, public representatives should make it known to them that there is a specific requirement on them in this regard. A range of provisions under Part 14 of the Local Government Act 2001 enable an elected council to obtain information in the possession of the manager on any business or transaction of the authority, including plans, reports, financial information or other relevant information. Regulations made in 2003 under section 237A of the 2001 Act require local authorities to put in place arrangements to provide to Oireachtas Members specified documentation, such as that relating to their budgets and draft development plans, and a wide range of other relevant information.
Local authorities are expected to have the objective of seeking to deal as expeditiously as may be with requests for access to information by a parliamentary representative in accordance with a proper level of customer service. They are expected to apply equivalent systems, procedures and timeframes as those which relate to councillors in their dealings with correspondence by parliamentary representatives. This includes similar arrangements for electronic access to information by councillors. These arrangements were introduced in the context of the ending of the dual mandate. Adequate legislative provision for public representatives is, therefore, already in place.
While at first glance it would appear that there would be no additional costs arising from the Bill, particularly as local authorities aim to respond with all due speed to correspondence, there is a risk that the mandatory and inflexible requirement proposed would inhibit efficient and effective delivery of services generally if resources had to be diverted to comply with it and that there would be consequential impacts on staffing levels. Potential efficiencies could be lost, with a direct cost to those paying for local government. Accordingly, the Government is opposed to the Bill.
I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate on the Bill, even though I had not planned to do so. The tone of this debate is completely at odds with the reality. It is as if we are trying to paint over the cracks in the system without acknowledging what is happening with local authorities. While the Bill may have been drafted in good faith, it does not do justice to the people who work for our local authorities. I have the pleasure to work with my local authority, as both a councillor and a Member of these Houses, for the past four years. The people who are employed by the authority in my area which, as Deputy Catherine Murphy pointed out, has the lowest level of staff per head of population in the country are absolutely superb. Meath County Council punches far above its weight, particularly in light of the number of staff available to it. Instead of bashing local authority staff which most Members present seem to believe is acceptable, I want to publicly congratulate them on the work they do.
I do not require legislation to obtain replies from my local authority. As stated, I have a relationship with the staff there which I have built up over a number of years. I recognise that it may be difficult for members of the public to obtain answers within a short period, particularly if it is difficult to obtain the relevant information, but this is not because local authority staff are sitting at their desks coming up with ways to upset the general public. Local authority employees are completely overworked as a result of the reduction in staff numbers in recent years.
The staff to whom I refer work in our communities. They are our neighbours, members of our families and friends. They work damn bloody hard and they need to be respected for this. We should not be pointing the finger or putting in place legislation which is designed to allow them to be admonished or reported to the Ombudsman if someone does not receive a reply to a letter within three days for normal requests or 15 for substantive queries. These people are working under duress and they must be congratulated for maintaining the level of services we enjoy. One of the real problems in our local authorities is that staffing has been reduced drastically in some cases in recent years and morale is on the floor in many cases. Having these conversations and making willy-nilly comments to the press about services not being delivered does not help. Public servants do a job in this country and they should be congratulated for it and supported for the fact that most of them are doing either two jobs or one and a half jobs. The management team in my local authority work 80 hour and 100 hour weeks. I am unsure how many of us would be happy to work 80 hour and 100 hour weeks while suffering the backlash of loose talk from politicians.
The Deputy should wake up. Some of us do it.
It is not warranted and it is unfair.
Where are all of Deputy Doherty's colleagues today?
I thank the Deputy. There are difficulties in the administration of services on a local and national basis. Major reform is needed, not finger pointing laws to admonish people who are not doing their job. These people are doing their job to the best of their ability based on the services, funding and resources available. We should assist them and not point the finger. We should support them with new funds or streams of finance so they can provide the services.
I disagree with the comments of Deputy Catherine Murphy. I do not believe an initiative such as the fix-my-street website is a stunt. We should embrace technology to improve services to ordinary, everyday citizens.
One must have money to fix a street.
We must provide better finances which is what we are doing with regard to the household charges and the likes of the septic tank initiative.
Will the Minister give a response on-line to fix septic tanks?
I do not believe the Bill appreciates the level of services we are already getting from an over-stretched local authority system here. Someone should stick up for the people providing damned good services on the basis of the funding they get and the under-staffing levels with which they have to put up.
I welcome the opportunity to discuss local government because it affects people day in and day out in their ordinary lives. I disagree with the tone of the debate earlier which was critical of workers in local authorities. My experience in Dublin City Council is that their performance, response and the quality of service has increased considerably in the past ten years despite resources being reduced.
Deputy Stanley called for a response and for real action. I am reminded from my period in the local authority that real action is judged by the budgets made on an annual basis. There was a great campaign in the Dublin area to save three swimming pools. When the decision was made in the budget to save the three swimming pools the people who were shouting loudest about it were not prepared to make the hard decisions to give the funding to keep those three swimming pools open. I am pleased to report that I was one of the councillors prepared to vote for a budget to keep those services in local communities. Real action means councillors must make those decisions to provide funding for it. There is a responsibility on all of us not to ask councils to do things for which we have not provided finance.
Reform of local government must be carried out quickly and I am aware that the Minister is committed to it. The intentions in the Bill are honourable but I am concerned about putting criteria on local government. Councillors and elected representatives are perfectly capable of judging what they are capable of doing in their local authority areas and the required speed and quality of response. They have a responsibility through the chambers and the corporate committees to ensure the required responses arrive. I welcome Deputy Stanley's contribution. He stated that Sinn Féin is in favour of local taxation. We should not have representation without taxation, but in many cases there is representation without taxation. This means local elected councillors can always pass the buck. They should be able to introduce measures that suit local areas from a recipe of taxation to raise revenues and fix the roads to which Deputy Catherine Murphy referred.
Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan referred to public private partnerships, PPPs. The decision on PPPs was made in this House by the former Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Mr. Dempsey. He told the then assistant city manager, Mr. Brendan Kenny, that PPPs were the only show in town. Local authorities were forced down that road. I recall that during the debate in the local council chamber someone said public private partnerships would not work because of the manner in which they were being forced on local councils.
In coming years with true reform of local government and by moving powers back closer to the citizen we will get a truly representative local government that can set down performance criteria for the staff which is realistic and which will allow local governments to raise taxation and funding and make decisions. I accept the good intentions of the Bill. There should be performance measures but these decisions should be made closer to the ground and we should not remove any further powers from local government.
I support the Bill. I am disappointed that the Minister will not agree to allow it to go into committee. We are setting down that replies should be given within a specified period. One could argue that the specified period might be too short and that could be amended but the idea that there is some right or power of local authorities not to answer correspondence other than the exceptions highlighted by Deputy Niall Collins seems to be a power local authorities should not have. They should have no right to refuse to reply.
When I was Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs and subsequently when I was the senior Minister in the Department of Social Protection one thing I put my mind to was to ensure people would get replies to queries. People tended to use the Minister's office as the fall-back position and if they could not get a reply from the system they often wrote to the Minister. I monitored this carefully for a simple reason.
I am pleased that Deputy Regina Doherty lives in a local authority where all the staff of the whole local authority are superb. I am unsure whether the footballers of her county are uniformly superb. It has been my experience of life for many years, as the effective employer in a community co-operative and subsequently as a Minister, that in all work places there are people who are committed. These are in the public service as they are in private service. There are people who do the job at an adequate level. If the truth is told in every public service and private service company there are people who under-perform. If Deputy Doherty can show me any public service or private service company of any size in which everyone is performing to the top level, as she has suggested, then I would be pleased to see it. Perhaps the Deputy will organise for me to go to such a local authority and meet all these people, all of whom without exception are performing to a high level.
I will continue to stand up for public servants. They are no different to anyone else and the level of performance varies. Often the problem in the public service is that there is a chain by which things get dealt with and if there is one mañana person in the middle of that chain who leaves the file on the desk then nothing ever gets dealt with.
The Minister has referred to various systems by which one can go and complain here and there. First, those of us in the Oireachtas could not use those facilities. In addition, many local authority members are reluctant to use those systems because they are afraid that if they do they might be victimised in some way and they might find the answers come to them even more slowly.
When I was Minister, I developed a system in order that a reply would come back in two weeks. Why did I do this? Because it cut down on work and it was the efficient thing to do. If one operated on the same basis as a work study expert in a factory, the one thing one would eliminate, which takes up a vast amount of time, is the second call of the person seeking a reply to the letter, either by correspondence or telephone.
We succeeded in my office in making sure that each section gave a substantive answer on the current situation within a fortnight. When I left the Department, there were three outstanding representations on the desk in my office that had not been answered. The reality was that by forcing people to give expeditious answers, we cut down the work enormously and we made it a lot more efficient, because people were not ringing back again and again trying to get the same information.
What information did we give? There is a certain bread company that talks about "today's bread today". We insisted on today's answer today. In other words, we would not get what we used to get from a certain education Department, when I could have filled my office with replies such as "I refer to your matter". I recall once writing to a Department looking for a form, and I received an answer which stated, "Dear Deputy, I refer to the letter you wrote to the Department. The matter is receiving attention and you will be contacted in due course." I could not understand why the person did not just get the form, put it in an envelope and send it to me in the post. We have all had the experience of getting an acknowledgment and getting very little action over the years. It improved over time, but we know that back in the old days, the answers came irrespective of the who was in government, but we never got a substantive reply.
When I moved to the Department of Social Protection, there was obviously much more correspondence. A Deputy would write to me asking when a decision would be made on, for example, an application for a pension. The Deputy would then write a second or third time, and no answer of any substance would be issued, other than an acknowledgment. The person then got or did not get what he or she was entitled to. It was the person who got the substantive reply. A month later, the Deputy would get a reply stating, "Dear Deputy, I refer to a representation you made six months ago. You will be delighted to hear that your constituent got [whatever it was] last month." That was a total waste of time for everybody. The Deputy wanted to know where the matter was in the system at the time he wrote the letter, so I instructed civil servants to write back stating, "Dear Deputy, I refer to your application for [whatever]. This matter is under consideration with [whoever] and is at [whatever] stage, and a decision should issue within a certain time." If other Deputies are like me, that was the kind of basic information they were seeking at the time.
We managed to make significant improvements by giving the real time information. It did not give the Deputies the answer, but it provided information on what stage of the process it was at and how long it would take. Therefore, I believe what Deputy Collins is proposing is correct. In fact, I will go further and say it should be extended to cover the whole public service, because the systems to which the Minister refers are simply not working. In his speech he states that, "A universal standard set in law, of 20 days for a substantive reply, runs the risk of reducing the scope for more rigorous requirements and better performance where this is appropriate." I do not know who wrote the speech, but I do not know what that means. If the substantive reply is that the matter is being considered and these issues have been raised and there needs to be further examination of certain issues, that is a substantive reply. What Deputy Collins is not considering a substantive reply is the standard letter Deputies receive on the first iteration, which in most cases states, "Dear Deputy, I refer to the letter you wrote on behalf of a constituent, and a reply will issue in due course." Having worked an efficient system, I can tell the Deputy that all of these arguments are spurious and do not stand up to scrutiny.
As Deputies in the House, we can demand and get a substantive reply within four days. It is amazing that the officials can do it in four working days when they have to do it through the parliamentary questions system. I have often felt - I would like to congratulate Deputy Collins on raising this issue - that a similar system should be available where a local authority is not doing what it should do in giving us an answer and a realistic update. If a person writes in 15 times about the same issue, officials can answer by saying there is no substantive change from the original answer, as we used to do with parliamentary questions when Deputies asked the same question again and again. That explains where the matter stands.
There are customer service charters and vision statements on walls. It is fair to say that if systems are not quickly dealt with, they are often more adhered to in the breach than in the action. I cannot envisage what kind of a question could be asked where a substantive reply could not be given within 14 days. I have no doubt the Minister's adviser is telling him or her that a decision has not been made, which is the argument I got in the Department of Social Protection, but that was not the question asked. The people wanted an update as it was at that stage. There is no point in waiting until the decision is made. As the substantive reply is the situation as it is, if there are outstanding issues, the reply should indicate this and that would cover the Minister. I am sure Deputy Collins will agree with my interpretation of what he is trying to put forward. It gets the Minister away from this acknowledgement disease.
The Minister's conclusion is a beauty. He stated, "While at first glance it would appear that there would be no additional costs arising from the Bill, particularly as local authorities aim to respond with all due speed to correspondence, there is a risk that the mandatory and inflexible requirement proposed would inhibit efficient and effective delivery of services generally if resources had to be diverted to comply with it, with consequential impacts on optimal staffing levels." Many years ago, when I was running the co-operative, I had the great blessing of getting a very efficient person into the office who taught me a great deal about efficiency. She thought me that when she was asked a question, instead of writing a note, putting it aside and dealing with it later, she just dealt with it there and then and the person never had to ask a second time. The reason she did this was that it gave her more undisturbed time to get on with the work she was doing. The person never had to interrupt her again because she had provided the information. She thought me a lot about the science of reducing unnecessary work. If we went through the public service and measured the amount of time wasted by people interrupting and trying to get an answer to something for which they had already asked, we could reduce staff requirements and staffing times. Having worked with that system throughout my working life as an administrator, I have found that when we apply that rigorously, we reduce enormously the pressure on staff. Therefore, the Minister's conclusion is fundamentally flawed.
As somebody who ran an industry - in our case we were trying to produce fencing stakes, saw timbers and so on - every day we looked at ways to reduce the work burden and to make the business more efficient. We tried to stop things falling on the floor. We put in magic eyes, barriers and every kind of thing. We did this to ensure we got more production for less effort on the part of the workforce. Anybody who ever worked in an industry or toured a factory will know that a huge amount of time and effort goes into doing that on the factory floor. This suggests that the methodologies that have been tried for 100 years have proven hugely successful in terms of process analysis and processing a product.
Try to persuade people working in offices that every bit of paper should be processed through in the same way and they throw up their hands in horror and state that it should not be done and that they should be allowed to do it their way. It always seems strange that the person on the factory floor is expected to accept that if a scientific approach can achieve a better result with better productivity and less stress for the worker then it is right but the same approach cannot be taken in operating an administrative system. When this approach is taken and one begins to analyse it in this way the results are absolutely startling with regard to how one can increase productivity, reduce strain and pressure on the worker and provide a much better service to the customers.
This is what the Bill is about. It is about ensuring that it is more pleasant for the workers to go to work because people will not phone up to take the head off them, particularly front-line staff covering for more senior staff who have not replied to letters. We know this happens all the time and the poor people in the front line, as happened in the tax debacle organised by the Government recently, get the slamming for people up the line who have not replied to correspondence. Therefore, an efficient system should be put in place and made mandatory. Nobody in industry would tolerate an inefficient system or people stating they will not work efficiently because it is not their way of doing something. Why should it be accepted in administration? It is totally farcical.
I passionately support the Bill and I hope between now and Tuesday the Minister will reflect once again on this and realise that what he is stating is that it should be discretionary for local authorities to be inefficient and not to correspond or reply with up to date information on queries raised. He is against efficiency, courtesy and a good way of doing business being mandatory. I hope that on Tuesday the Minister will come to the House and state that he has accepted the Bill, and that on Committee Stage any detail that needs to be argued out can be. The idea that people are entitled to a basic answer in a basic timeframe is fundamental and from my experience I know it can be implemented if it is done in a sensible way.
I will share time with Deputy Tom Fleming.
I commend Deputy Niall Collins on bringing the Bill before the House today. I compliment the Government on introducing Friday sittings to discuss private Members' Bills. However, I was disappointed by this morning's interaction. I do not want to bring the House into disrepute but it is very difficult when one votes on something at face value to discover it was inaccurate and totally untrue.
We are discussing the Bill and I thank Deputy Niall Collins and praise him because this is a brave stand to take. Every Deputy is entitled to make a contribution and I welcome all of the various viewpoints. We are here because the people choose various representatives. People on all sides are being honest.
I praise South Tipperary County Council, not for good PR purposes. I was a member of the county council in 1990 and from 1999 to 2007. Much progress was made in many areas but there are deficiencies in other areas. Like the previous speaker stated, one will not receive 100% from everybody, but one might receive 110% from some people and this is human nature. South Tipperary County Council introduced an environmental awards scheme 12 years ago which has been a tremendous success and there has been great engagement with the public and community groups including Tidy Towns and on initiatives such as the golden mile. The people and communities of south Tipperary came together with the local authority and FÁS to do great work and brought pride to the communities through the work done on a voluntary basis. Local authority officials attended meetings. When the new local area plans were published the planners attended meetings with communities in the evenings to discuss the plans and receive submissions. They engaged with the people and we must do this more and more.
This House also must engage with people and listen to them. There may be a future Friday sitting which I will not attend, but I am disappointed and cannot believe the lack of Deputies here today. The Bill has to do with local government and is important legislation. I have tabled a Bill on scrap metal which has not yet been chosen in the lottery system. I am also disappointed that we cannot vote today but that we must wait until Tuesday. If some of us had been thrown out this morning, which we nearly were, it could not be voted on until Tuesday. This is farcical as we would be in limbo for the weekend wondering whether we would miss serious issues such as committee meetings on environmental issues. I want to attend the committee meeting next Wednesday with the Minister. We have much to discuss and he will attend from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Prior to Christmas we were, quite rightly, going through the amendments slowly. We were trying to get answers from the Minister and his officials but were not succeeding. At the time, the Minister said he would bring us back two or three days after Christmas. We should have come back then but it will be ten days later when we will discuss the amendments that will affect people.
This Bill also affects people. I do not want to go back over what Deputy Ó Cuív stated but he hit the nail on the head. When he went to "Craggy" which had the smallest staff of any Department, with perhaps 50 or 60 people, it was an efficient Department and well-run. Over the years, Departments and local authorities have built up. The Minister, Deputy Hogan, will be aware, although he may not agree with me, that what really destroyed local authorities was the better local government programme which was one of those grand delusions drawn up by the former Taoiseach, Deputy Bertie Ahern, and others. Shortly after its inception I described it as bitter local government because it alienated many staff in local authorities. Hard-working staff did not receive their due recognition or fair play. When I joined the local authority in 1990, a county manager, a county engineer, a county secretary and several area engineers ran the show. The Minister will know this better than I do. Now, there is a county manager, six directors of services and a plethora of layers of government. Not only is this bitter to the public but also to many members of staff. Morale was dealt a serious blow and never recovered because the system still pertains. The bonus system which was introduced was a disgrace. Who received bonuses? It was the director of services and managers but not the lad on the road with a shovel, the girls in the office or the water caretakers receiving phone calls in the middle of the night. The people at the top in the section received a bonus but the people who did the work, the front-line staff, were left out.
We have much to learn and much reform to do. No one is better able to do so than the Minister because he has been around for a long time. He has been in this House and in politics for much longer than I have. He laughed at some of what was said this morning and he is a jocose man - we will have more laughs, jokes and rows next week - but he knows better than I do what is wrong with the system. It is a pity when people go from this side of the House to the other that they leave it to the departmental officials. I will not go into a certain reply which was received but the conclusion was not written by the Minister; it came from the lads in the Department. This is the problem. I am not knocking officials per se and I work with the South Tipperary County Council officials on a daily basis-----
On a point of order, I wish Deputy McGrath to acknowledge that I take responsibility for what I read out and we should not refer in any way to officials with regard to this matter.
Gabh mo leithscéal. I acknowledge that.
Thank you, Deputy.
I hope the Minister acknowledges where I am coming from and I expect he will. I am not knocking officials per se. I am stating that we have a permanent government and systems in local authorities. I have met the best of officials in South Tipperary County Council with regard to schemes introduced in the local authority area and rate collection, which was at 93% or 94% and collected by people going out in wet and cold weather. Officials also worked on the flooding and snowstorms which affected south Tipperary. How the Civil Defence operates is a lesson to us all, such as when bad news on “boil water” notices must be delivered. The people of rural Ireland and their septic tanks have been blamed for contamination. When there is contamination of the council water supply from any source - it is rarely caused by septic tanks - Civil Defence personnel go out with letters to ensure they reach every household. We should not depend on the post, e-mail or radio broadcasts, although they help. I recommend that the Civil Defence be entrusted with that task.
I cannot agree with my colleague, Deputy Catherine Murphy, although I respect her argument that she would do away with county councils and have three or four regional authorities. The experience has been disastrous with such a process. The HSE taking on the role of the old health boards is an example. Another recent example is the transfer of the medical card system from local bodies to a centralised system in Dublin. It was a total fiasco. A neighbour of mine is very sick and applied for a medical card six months ago. I got word to my office after several weeks of twice daily phone calls that the file had been lost; anybody can lose a file but I could have been told weeks ago. Any Deputy would agree that the process is a fiasco. I do not blame those on the front line who deal with this in Dublin, but much blackguarding went on with the passport process, although many good people work in the office. That is not good enough for the public, who pay taxes and rates. I cannot agree with some of the processes in the Department of Social Protection either. A woman rang me yesterday evening who gave all her information to the Department six months ago. After several requests for information and having been told she would have a reply to her appeal within two weeks, we are six months down the road. That is totally unacceptable in a democratic country.
Bills like this one from Deputy Collins must be introduced, as well as others. The Minister and his Government promised reform and they were elected in large numbers as a result. They would have been elected if they had not made any promises but they promised reform. There was a row this morning over the information supplied by the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Quinn to us and to his backbenchers. I was a soldier like that and had to do as I was told by senior party members. Above all else, I trusted them. We were told that the fines relating to the water directive would be due in February but that is far from the truth. I compliment Deputy Ó Cúiv and his researchers, who went to the European Commission to find out the truth, or as The Irish Press would have said, the truth in the news. Where is the truth if we cannot believe what comes from the Minister in charge of ordering business for the day and the Government Chief Whip?
I met the Minister in the canteen having a cup of tea and told him I was disappointed that the Bill was being guillotined on Committee Stage. That is unprecedented and the Deputy who is returning to the Chamber now, Deputy Regina Doherty, and her colleagues voted to accept it. The Minister said he was not aware of that and that I should speak to the Chief Whip. He started talking about fivers. I deny that scurrilous peddling of disgraceful lies. I was at a public meeting the other night in a different county to my own and somebody suggested that everybody could contribute €5 for expenses for the meeting. It was knocked on the head straight away.
The Deputy was caught out.
The Deputy, without interruption.
Cad a tharla? The Deputy has found us again. Did he get a phone call? Ca bhí sé sa maidin? Where was he all morning?
Noel Davern would not do it.
For God's sake. Is the Deputy allowed to mention people who are not in the House?
Deputy McGrath, without interruption.
He has a béal mór. He should keep the béal dúnta.
What about the Vita Cortex workers? He should sort them out.
He has enough problems there. A Tipperary man ran that company well. There were no complaints when he was running it well. His money is tied up in NAMA so he cannot do anything about it.
To get back to what I was saying, untruths were peddled and voted for. I am delighted Deputy Catherine Murphy tapped me on the shoulder and said we would go to the Ceann Comhairle with this because the House was completely misled. Outside the House, the Minister told me earlier he did not know about this. I am not accusing the Minister of anything as we had our discussion in good faith over a cup of coffee. The House was grossly misled and the issue will be raised by the Ceann Comhairle. It is a farce that it costs €90,000 for this House to sit and where is the Government?
What about the €41,000?
I am glad the Deputy brought that up. What about the €112,000 that Fine Gael gets? It gets it for spin doctors. How dare the Deputy raise that issue. This issue should be put to bed. The Independents are entitled to it. We have no researchers but the Government is falling over such personnel. How dare the Deputy bring it up but I am glad he did. I will beat him from Cork city right up to west Cork with this one. His party is robbing the country. The parties are getting €112,000.
What about the fivers?
Say it again and peddle the lies. The Deputy can stick his fiver where the monkey stuck the sixpence. Excuse my language.
Deputies, please. (Interruptions).
The Deputy should refer to the Bill.
I am trying but Deputy Buttimer is distracting all of us. The Independents have received some nice comments in the newspaper for hard work and honesty in the Chamber. We are not being given money for breaking guidelines on adviser salaries. If the true cost of government was calculated, it would be €130,000 or €150,000 per day with all the spin doctors waiting for the Minister. They give him information that he knows is incorrect. He knows in his own heart what is right and wrong.
A Deputy mentioned fixmystreet.ie. Is there any chance of getting a website that could match mine? Perhaps it could be fixmyseptictank.ie or bigphilministerhogan.ie? All the people in rural Ireland with septic tanks want good systems and do not want to pollute the water. They do not want wells that contaminate water.
We voted yesterday on a Bill, having been given false information. There will be a guillotine on Committee Stage next week, which has never happened before. We do not know the full contents of the Bill and the Minister will have total discretion to issue directives. There must be standards in here and everywhere else. It is wrong.
We need more Bills like the one brought forward by Deputy Collins this morning, and there should also be more transparency. Some 99% of public officials are top class. We must have the public's respect and the public service must have confidence in the work it does. The Minister indicated in his reply that local authority members had avenues for complaints.
There is another issue concerning local government reform. The Minister is in Tipperary trying to beat the county and Kilkenny together. I know it happened to our county teams last year in Croke Park and will happen again this year but the Minister wants to combine the local authorities. He set up a sham information group with the county manager from the north Tipperary authority as chairman. Where is the fairness in that? He has brought in two retired officials, as if there are not enough unemployed people in the country. Those retired officials should be out playing golf now. County managers in Waterford and Tipperary, as well as many other places, retired with significant gratuities and pensions and are working again in advising about amalgamations. Retired people should be allowed to stay in retirement. Why does the Minister not do the decent thing and put the part of Kilkenny hanging into Waterford city into that county? Why did he provide €1 million to put an office in Waterford city to service County Kilkenny?
It is in Kilkenny.
Yes, but it is hanging into Waterford. It would nearly fall in if there was a big flood. The Minister is using his position appallingly. He is looking to achieve savings in local authorities but there was €1 million for his friends in County Kilkenny to put up an office in a shopping centre in a part of County Kilkenny that anybody could walk or crawl to from any part of Waterford city. The Minister is undermining any good work.
The Deputy could walk to Waterford from where he lives.
Yes, and I accept part of Waterford in my constituency. I would not expect to put an office in there. The Minister has been exposed. There is a blatant arrogance.
The Minister is exposed.
He has been exposed.
The Deputy is eating into other Deputies' time.
I will tell the people that Deputy McGrath is against the project.
Yes. What is fair for Kilkenny should be fair for Waterford. The Minister will hear more about it.
How does one follow that? I compliment Deputy Collins for bringing the Bill before the House. The Minister is a pioneer in his position. He is a reforming Minister who has vision which some of his predecessors lacked and a commitment to follow through.
I would prefer if other Members listened rather than ranted and were objective in their approach to politics. That is why the Bill is important, because it is about local government which of its nature is about the provision of local services and serving local people. I fully agree with the Minister that we cannot micro-manage. He is correct; we cannot. We must allow local government autonomy, independence and power within its own structures and areas of administration to be able to govern and administer. However, therein lies the problem. Under the previous regime, for 14 years the growth of a tier of bureaucracy in local government was exponential and unbelievable. Posts were created to do certain things. Posts of director of services were created and areas of responsibility amalgamated, but one must ask what happened subsequently. Do we have greater accountability today in local government in the provision and delivery of services? In many cases we do not. Saying this might not make me very popular. The Minister is correct; we have too many local authorities. We need not just to amalgamate but to reduce, reform and give them more power. If that means reducing the number of elected members and reducing the levels of pay for a certain coterie at the top level of the public service, so be it. We have immensely talented individuals within the administrative area of Cork City Council and Cork County Council who serve the people. They are innovative, have vision and are committed. I agree with aspects of the Bill. We must address the issue of representations by public representatives and customer service in terms of queries about house maintenance, the enhancement of the public realm and requests for traffic calming measures. Deputy Collins referred to written submissions. It is important that the issue is examined. However, the Minister is correct in his overarching view that the system cannot be micro-managed.
Deputy Mattie McGrath, in his eloquent address, spoke about reform and his opposition to certain matters. We have had a more in-depth analysis of local government than perhaps of the Seanad, yet the Government proposes to abolish the Seanad. I would hate to think we would abolish local government, but I know we are not going to do this. In its report of July 2010 the local government efficiency review group referred to the quality of customer service. My firm view is that local authorities must be given power to raise revenue to deliver services. That must happen if local government is to survive and be effective. That would mean in many ways giving power back to local councillors. As a member of a local authority I was never afraid to take responsibility or decisions. Many of my colleagues on the Fine Gael side of the House were exactly the same. The former Senator Denis Cregan made the point to me one day in Cork City Hall at a budget meeting that we were there to serve the people. He said it was about taking decisions and getting it right for the people. He was right. That is what it is about for public representatives.
Members opposite cannot just come to the House and posture for the sake of getting headlines in the newspapers and on local radio. They must be prepared to give and take responsibility. One cannot go around the country fulminating against everything. What one requires is a bit of bottle and the courage of one's convictions.
I would like to see a review of the customer service charter of many local authorities to see how they are ticking the boxes and whether they are fulfilling the terms of the charter and adhering to what is enshrined in it. In these times of recession the importance of local government is greater than ever.
I am concerned at the reference by Deputy Collins to the Ombudsman in the Bill. The Office of the Ombudsman is inundated with requests from all strata of society about various services. I am concerned that local government issues might further clog up the system such as whether Deputy Buttimer's request to have a pothole filled in or a representation on a housing issue for Mrs. Murphy has been addressed.
Undoubtedly, as the Minister grows in his role, he will be more reforming, which is to be welcomed. He has a plan and vision centred on the delivery of a quality customer-oriented service by local authorities. In meetings with the city and county managers in Cork it is important to acknowledge that there is great planning. One example is the Cork docklands project where an innovative group of businesspeople have come together. They recognise that we are in a different economic climate than we were when the project first started, but they are continuing with it. The city manager has recognised its importance and wants to see it progressed and delivered in a tangible way, which is important. I am confident it will not be forgotten by the Minister and hope the Government will further its aims. Such a project can bring heart, soul and spirit back to the city of Cork. A quarter is waiting to be developed that needs to have life restored to it. Equally, with the development of Parc Uí Chaoimh in that quadrant, it provides an opportunity to create a new vibrancy in the city.
I welcome the decision by An Bord Pleanála to grant planning permission for a new convention centre in Cork on the old Beamish and Crawford site. The Leas Cheann-Comhairle is someone who is interested in music, the arts and culture. The centre will be a fantastic venue in Cork city. It will attract a new type of tourist and urban footfall to a city which has so often seen people arrive at the airport and travel onwards to west Cork and County Kerry. That is where local government has a role to play. The former city manager, Mr. Joe Gavin, had the vision to develop a convention centre. It has taken a little longer than we wished, but I hope we will see the project come to fruition on an historic site in the city which I invite Members opposite to visit. There are fabulous restaurants in that part of the city, as well as great night entertainment. It is vibrant and safe, with a great community and commercial aspect to it which is centred on people. That is why local government is very important; it is about people.
I start to get worried when I hear references to customer service. I accept we are all customers, but it is about people and the condition of the public realm in one estate or townland, the condition of a road or the enhancement we make to the public realm within the city landscape. One of my regrets as a member of Cork City Council was that I was not vociferous enough on the issue of retail outlets, of which we have an over-supply in the country. One can see what is happening. One of the things we can learn from the Celtic tiger era and the recession is that planners must use cop-on.
Some of the Fine Gael councillors who voted in favour of the retail developments-----
I refer to the planners. As Deputy Boyd Barrett is aware, councillors do not have a say in the granting of planning permission.
They make the plan.
I am talking about the city of Cork with which Deputy Mattie McGrath might not be familiar because he does not go beyond the townland, which is all right. Deputy McGrath only goes travelling to peddle misinformation and to try to get headlines-----
Excuse me, the Deputy should look in the mirror.
Deputy Buttimer-----
He hardly knows where Blackpool is.
If I could have some co-operation there are a number of Deputies who wish to speak.
Of course.
The Minister will speak at 1 p.m.
I will conclude on this point. It is important that planners use common sense. We must incentivise business. We must allow people to create jobs and planners to have a significant role in this regard. I refer in particular to the city of Cork where we must allow people to create constructive, commercially viable long-term jobs which have the potential to create further jobs. This is why the role of local government is critical.
I commend Deputy Collins on bringing this Bill forward as it is important legislation. The Minister has indicated the Government will oppose the Bill but I hope in time we can consider it again. This Bill is important because it provides for the delivery of a quality service to people.
I ask Deputy Tom Fleming to be as brief as possible.
I welcome this Private Members' Bill introduced by Deputy Niall Collins. The work of local authorities is always challenging but particularly in view of the fact that redundancy schemes will be taking effect in February and there is an embargo on the recruitment of staff. As a result of a smaller staff complement over recent years, I have noted an undue delay in providing substantive replies to queries from public representatives. In the past when I was a county councillor I had the time to visit the council offices and was thus able to tease out many matters with the officials. Because of pressure on my time, I am unable to do so now, and this is the case for all Members. I have noted the practice of one line replies to queries, which are merely acknowledgements of receipt of applications. It should be possible with modern communications technology to provide Oireachtas Members, members of local authorities and the public with regularly updated information.
For example, in the case of the provision of social housing, local authorities are inundated with applications, many of which lie in an office for months on end. The least that could be done would be to have these applications processed in a timely fashion in order to be fair to the public and to public representatives. The applicants are entitled to a regular update on the progress of their applications, at least quarterly. This would take the pressure off us as public representatives and would alleviate the frustration experienced by the applicants. At the moment it is a vicious circle and these people are getting very annoyed. They all want to know where they are on the waiting list.
It is about time that all local authorities adopted this system. I commend the local authorities in Kerry. Killarney Town Council has been operating this system. Kerry County Council operates a banding system with approximately 20 names on each band. At least one can inform an applicant for a three bedroom house that he or she is in a particular band of the list. This is a fitting and fair system for applicants. A standard system should be used by all local authorities. Perhaps the Minister could arrange a standardisation of the system for all local authorities to make it more practical for everyone, both the people and public representatives.
There is always a big demand for local authority grants as well as for social housing. Many needy persons do not have the finances to carry out the full work for which grants apply, such as grants available for disabled persons or for the elderly to make necessary improvements to their houses. These people are entitled to be informed of an approximate date for a visit by an official or an engineer and for the processing and approval of their application. An inspection and general approval must be completed before any building work can be commenced. Any delay also lengthens the delay for those who are contracted to do the work or who are looking for such work. The prolonged application and approval process is a form of anti-employment, so to speak.
I suggest that the Bill should include provisions relating to the HSE as its system is very unsatisfactory. I commend the various State bodies, Ministers and Departments on providing us with prompt replies, often in a matter of a week or less. I recently asked a question of the Minister for Health on 3 December on two urgent matters and this was referred to the HSE. Even allowing for the Christmas break and the new year, I still await a reply and this delay is uncalled for. Members require a more prompt response. The HSE is an entity which appears to be outside all accountability, especially to public representatives. Replies are eventually received but at that stage it is a bit of an embarrassment to be referring back to the client after a lengthy delay.
I note the reference to the Office of the Ombudsman. Many people are reluctant to use the freedom of information system as there is a cost involved and many people are not happy to go through that process for routine queries to local authorities regarding their personal matters. The Office of the Ombudsman could provide a more simplified system rather than the appeals system referred to in the Water Services (Amendment) Bill. People are frightened that they may have to go to court in order to appeal. This should not be necessary. Many people have never had occasion to go before a judge in court and this frightens them. This is what is putting the fear of God into people as regards the Water Services (Amendment) Bill. I suggest the Office of the Ombudsman should be used in this regard rather than the courts.
I remind the Deputy there are 12 minutes remaining for two Deputies. I ask him to be brief.
The Minister is a very practical man of common sense. There needs to be some toning down of the provision. If my geography is correct, County Leitrim borders County Fermanagh and a person over the ditch could be in Northern Ireland where the administration is not overly restrictive in its conditions. There is cross-Border uniformity in many matters and I suggest we examine the regulations in the Six Counties. One of the provisions they have there is for a de-sludging exercise. The local authority in Northern Ireland will carry out the first desludging and I believe there is also some grant aid available. It is a more simplified system and I ask the Minister to take a good look at what is being done there. The EPA is causing serious fright among people.
I remind the Deputy that out of courtesy to his colleagues he should conclude.
There is another issue with regard to the nitrates directive. In Northern Ireland farmers have been spreading slurry over recent months. However, due to the heavy rainfall we have been getting here, the tanks of every farmer here are full to capacity and overflowing. The Minister is a practical man and I ask him to look also at the regulations in this regard in Northern Ireland. We should be in tandem with them and adopt the same regulations as they appear to be much more flexible.
I will share my time with Deputy Boyd Barrett. I thank the Chair for the opportunity to speak on this legislation, the Local Authority Public Administration Bill. I welcome this Bill, but it is also important to have a broader debate on local government and general reform in public and political life. The bottom line must always be quality of service for our citizens and our taxpayers. That is not happening currently. I feel strongly about this and will support the legislation. This Bill is also a glorious opportunity for a genuine start to local government reform. Leaving things as they are is not an option. This debate is not all about public representation, it is also about delivering to our citizens and about their rights to access to public services.
I am a little disappointed that the Minister has seen fit to reject the Bill from the start. This is bad for our councils, council staff and people on the ground. Reform is all about change. It is about changing the mindset at local government level. We were all elected in the recent general election and the vast majority of Members put Dáil reform on their agenda as a priority. The Government got elected on the mandate of Dáil reform. Therefore, I say to the Minister that he should get on with the job now.
This Bill is an Act to compel local authorities to provide members of the public and public representatives with substantive replies to written communications within a prescribed period of time. This is reasonable and my question to the House is what is wrong with that. Section 2(1) provides that where a member of the public or public representative sends a written communication to a local authority requesting a reply from that local authority, the local authority shall send a written acknowledgment in receipt of the written request to the member of the public within five working days of receipt of the written request. That is something we all do in our day jobs. We get a holding letter out first within a matter of 24 hours and then try to get back to the person within a number of days with a substantive response. The section further provides that a response should then be sent within 15 working days of the date upon which the written acknowledgment was sent.
There is nothing wrong with asking for and demanding efficient services for our people. This is very important. This was brought home to me during the recent flood crisis in the Donnycarney and Artane areas in my constituency. On the night of the floods when all hell broke loose, we could not get through to the so-called contact numbers. This was a disgrace. Even Deputy Brian Hayes, who is Minister of State with responsibility for the OPW, agreed with us on that. I was not happy with the city council response that night because some of the numbers were out of date and some of the people were inaccessible. I am not referring to the crisis with regard to the 999 number which was blocked up with the number of incidents. I am referring to councillors and Deputies not being able to get through to the council to get some idea of what was happening, while water was going in the windows of houses in Ardlea Road in Artane and in Donnycarney. That is unacceptable.
In fairness to the Minister he raised this issue with the councils and he put pressure on them to be more efficient in their response. However, the mindset has not changed and we had a row with the city manager ourselves. As soon as we came back, we asked for accurate information and proper figures so that we can deal with the next crisis when it happens, whether snow, ice or flooding. When I got the information and figures, I gave some of that information to key people in the flooded areas, but the city manager then rang us up and said we should not give that information out to people, although they were directly affected. This sort of stuff goes on. As someone who spent five years as a councillor with Dublin City Council, I am aware there is defensiveness on the part of some of the members of local authorities. I accept the point made by Deputy Doherty that there are very good people serving on the council who are very efficient. In my area I see some departments of the council are better than others. There are some fantastic people in the housing department and in the roads department, but it is a disaster in other departments and I am still waiting for them to get back to me on particular issues. I find this unacceptable. I wonder then about Mrs. O'Brien in Donnycarney, if I and my staff are having problems getting information. There is something radically wrong with the system and we need reform.
We talk about respect for citizens. We should look again at our charter within the Dáil. I was looking at the Dáil customer charter the other day. It refers to equality and diversity and to communicating with customers and correspondence. Our staff here say they will respond promptly to calls, give their names when they answer the phone, respond to voicemail messages and will provide an alternative contact person if out of the office. That is a reasonable approach and it should be adopted by the city councils. This legislation provides they will reply to letters and emails within 15 working days.
What Deputy Collins is trying to do with this Bill is to give some teeth to local authorities and to make them more efficient. There is nothing wrong or too extreme about that. It is a pity Deputy Buttimer is not here, because I heard him heckling Deputy Mattie McGrath about the Independent Deputies allowance and so on. I would like to remind him that the major political parties got €13.48 million of taxpayers' money, which is equivalent to approximately €120,000 per Deputy. Therefore, we will not take any such guff from them.
A discussion on local government reform is very welcome. This discussion is also welcome in so far as the Bill brought forward by Fianna Fáil tries to deal with the considerable frustration among the public and among staff of local authorities. The Bill is fine as far as it goes. It is reasonable to expect that the public can get a prompt and substantive response from local authorities and that they should have recourse to the Ombudsman if they do not get that.
I do not want to score political points, but I must say this. Fianna Fáil should raise its hands in the context of the problems that currently exist in local government and its responsibility for those problems. If we want a greater level of accountability from local authorities, we should, for example, apologise for the fact that it was Fianna Fáil who made the decision to take control of waste collection services out of the hands of elected councillors and into the hands of unelected managers. That was an anti-democratic move which moved local authorities further away from public accountability. This relates to a wider issue which must be acknowledged by both this and the previous Government, namely, that the more local services are privatised and outsourced, the less accountability there is over those services and the less recourse the public has to question, interrogate or find out what is going on with regard to the delivery of those services. The services go into private hands and nobody is democratically accountable for them. Privatisation is antithetical to any sort of proper accountability that will ensure the public can get answers and have some input in terms of the delivery and quality of services.
We may have all the aspirations we want about prompt responses and so on, but if we do not have the resources and staff to deliver those responses, it remains an aspiration. Worse still, extreme pressure is put on staff who are already under pressure.
Everyone recognises that there are major difficulties with local government and local services, but it is important to stress that these are not due to a lack of quality, ability or willingness to work among staff. We have a sizable debt to local authority workers, as was particularly evident from the works they carried out during the large snowfalls and floods.
The problem lies in the fact that there are not enough local authority workers. Some 25% of staff have left my council since the height of the boom. Losing a quarter of library staff has led to a reduction in library opening hours and services. The same could be said in the case of housing maintenance, in that the slowness in work being carried out is the result of a reduction in staff. If we are to have quality local services and public accountability, people who are capable of delivering those services must be in place.
The historical underfunding of local government is a factor and the Government is wrong to try to deal with it by imposing flat charges and regressive property charges.
In urban areas and perhaps in rural areas, one of the main issues with which Deputies and councillors must deal is that of being telephoned by people who are desperate for housing or housing maintenance work. Any Government must realise how wrong it is that people who need housing are ringing politicians and putting pressure on local authorities when more empty houses than could be possibly required are available. I cannot understand why we cannot resolve this simple problem, as it would remove considerable pressure from local authorities. Leasing properties from developers is the wrong approach and wastes public money. Were the NAMA properties put under the direct control of local authorities, we could house significant numbers of people and the rents could accrue to the authorities, which are in dire need of extra revenue streams.
I thank the Deputies for their contributions and I will make a few points that I did not make at the beginning.
Local authorities are generally committed to the delivery of a quality service to the public. Examples in which this is not the case have been given, but the issue is usually one of solving a problem rather than one of a correspondence trail.
I give the highest priority to the devolution of power from central government to local government. In the coming months, I will discuss with the Government and the Oireachtas how this will occur. To give local authorities an opportunity, I will ask them to meet their statutory requirements in terms of public representation and to implement the regulations on customer service charters and action plans in the prescribed manner.
Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan mentioned her concern about the way we are heading in terms of community groups and local government. I value the role of each community group, be its work focusing on enterprise, community development or social support. I want to harness the groups' potential in line with local government so that we might have a synergy of personnel and resources and allow for a more effective delivery of service to citizens. I do not intend to leave the local government system the way it is. Given the times we are in, its service delivery to citizens must be more efficient and effective. Substantial reform in terms of the devolution of powers and responsibility is also necessary.
I am disappointed that the Deputy believed the pilot "Fix Your Street" scheme in south County Dublin was a gimmick. I am pleased to state that more than 1,700 reports were uploaded to the website during the pilot phase. South Dublin County Council's average response time to queries was 1.6 days, less than the deadline of two working days. Thanks to the application of technology to resolving some issues, there has been a creditable performance. Were this process rolled out to every local authority, Deputies would happily agree the system is working better.
While I take on board and am somewhat sympathetic to the issues raised in Deputy Niall Collins's Bill, I wish to deal with these matters in the context of statutory responsibilities. If the regulations are not working, we will gladly revisit these issues in the context of local government reform.
I will conclude briefly. Our lively and informative discussion on local government has been aided by the fact that many Deputies have passed through the local authority system. I am pleased that people have brought their experiences to the House to inform us in our work.
I am disappointed the Government has signalled its intention to oppose the Bill. Perhaps the Government will reflect on the matter before we vote on the Bill next Tuesday.
A number of measures were introduced around the time of the abolition of the dual mandate, but they have not been followed by Limerick County Council. For example, it has not briefed Oireachtas Members on its work for more than one year. I do not know the other local authorities' record in this regard.
I thank everyone who participated in this informative debate. Will the Minister and his officials take on board our comments, many of which were made with the best of intentions?
Every Deputy recognises that many people working in local authorities contribute over and above their normal duties. There are also workers who do not, and these people drag down the system down.
In accordance with Standing Order No. 117A(4), the division is postponed until immediately after the Order of Business on Tuesday, 17 January 2012.
The Dáil adjourned at 1.10 p.m. until 2 p.m. on Tuesday, 17 January 2012.
