I dtosach báire cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. I ask the Minister for the Environment and Local Government to extend the urban boundary of New Ross Urban District Council to include areas and townlands where the population will have a vote in the forthcoming local elections for New Ross Urban District Council, as pertained in 1994. Over 12 months ago New Ross Urban District Council applied to Wexford County Council to extend its urban area. The county council decided to defer its decision for a period of 12 months. There was some concern about boundary extensions that might ensue in Wexford and Enniscorthy and perhaps have revenue implications for Wexford County Council. The forthcoming local elections are predicated, as the previous local elections were, on an agreement instigated by the Department and made between New Ross Urban District Council and Wexford County Council which includes, inter alia, housing estates in Southknock, Riverview, Butlersland, Maudlins, Tower Grove and Castlemoyle Heights. There is an anomaly in that people not in the administrative area of the urban district council will again be allowed to vote in its election but will not be entitled to its services. Roads, lighting and other infrastructural services are provided by Wexford County Council to which the local people affected pay service charges. That has been a bone of contention in New Ross, as elsewhere, because of the disparity which arises in some instances, in this case in the same housing estate. Two houses in the same housing estate pay different amounts for the services they receive. This is as a consequence of the boundaries not being regulated.
When the Minister recommended in 1994 that the boundaries be extended to take in the hinterland, it was done on the premise that the forthcoming local government reform programme would regulate those boundaries. That never happened. The local people again have the opportunity to exercise their franchise, but the issue of their being outside the urban district area has not been addressed in the meantime. Perhaps the Minister of State would seek to address that on the basis that it flies in the face of the principle of democracy that an elected body is elected not only by people from within its administrative area but also by some outside it.
This probably has national implications. It has certainly been a major bone of contention in New Ross where people believe they should not only have the franchise but should also receive the services provided in the urban district and have the charges for those services levied upon them. If the principles of subsidiarity expounded in many of the EU regulations which come our way and which have been part of the programme for local government reform mean anything, it behoves us to give practical effect to them by extending the administrative boundary of the urban district council in this case. Perhaps the Minister would consider doing so to take in those areas which have the franchise. In doing that, he will be working from a prior agreement between the urban district council and the county council that these areas should be brought within the urban district for electoral purposes. That should also be done for administrative purposes.
Minister of State at the Department of the Environment and Local Government (Mr. D. Wallace): I thank Senator Walsh for raising this issue. The Minister for the Environment and Local Government, Deputy Dempsey, is unable to be in the House to respond and has asked me to do so on his behalf.
Local elections to town authorities were last held in 1994 having being deferred for nine years. Such deferral will no longer be possible if the forthcoming referendum on local government is carried. In 1994 the electoral areas of a number of towns were expanded, following local agreement between the elected councils concerned, to extend the franchise to individuals living in built up areas which formed part of the towns. These arrangements were given effect by the Local Government Act, 1994, applied for the purposes of the elections in 1994 and subsequent years and were for electoral purposes only.
Since 1996 it has been open to any local authority, including an urban district council, to adopt a proposal for the alteration of its boundaries, either in accordance with the 1994 electoral revisions or otherwise, and to submit an application to the Minister to alter the boundary accordingly for all purposes. There is no record in the Department of any such application in the case mentioned. The procedures involved are set out in Part V of the Local Government Act, 1991, and associated regulations. The framework provides for the adoption of a proposal by the promoting authority, in this case the urban district council, six months' consideration by the respondent, in this case the county council, and application by the proposer to the Minister who may establish an independent boundary committee to make recommendations.
The Minister appreciates the situation resulting from the 1994 revisions is not ideal and that boundary alteration must take account of financial and organisational complexities pointed to in the report on town local government, Towards Cohesive Local Government – Town and County. A local government Bill is being prepared which will provide a modern statutory framework for local authorities and a new context within which the question of local authority boundaries can be considered. The aim is to publish the Bill later this year. While the situation continues to apply for electoral purposes, in so far as service delivery is concerned, it is open to the local authorities concerned to make any necessary practical arrangements at local level.
The Seanad adjourned at 7.35 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 20 May 1999.