I move that the Bill be now read a Second Time. The Bill proposes to extend to the City of Waterford the system of municipal government that associates a city manager with an elected council. This system is already in operation in Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Dun Laoghaire. Under the Bill, the powers and duties of the corporation will be exercised in relation to certain reserved matters by a newly constituted council and in other respects by the city manager. The new council will consist of 15 members, four of whom shall be aldermen. The former council consisted of 40 members, including ten aldermen returned by five wards. It is considered that, under the new system, a numerically smaller body will be able to carry out the council's functions with greater dispatch.
Under the Bill, the city wards will be replaced by two electoral areas. The number of members to be elected by each area will be determined so as to secure, as far as is reasonably possible, equal representation on the basis of population. An election will be held within three months after the passing of the Bill. Provision is made to bring subsequent elections into line with the triennial elections of county councillors. The council will elect a mayor whose duties will be substantially the same as heretofore.
The functions reserved to the new council will preserve for the council the control of financial policy. The council will exercise the power of striking the municipal rate and of borrowing money. There are also reserved to the council the powers in regard to making by-laws, bringing permissive Acts into force, opposing and promoting Bills and appointing representatives on public bodies. Subject to the usual safeguards, they will also have power to appoint, suspend or remove the manager. There is a provision by which the powers of the council can, if necessary, be extended by an order of the Minister.
The city manager will be appointed on the recommendation of the Local Appointments Commissioners. Pending the permanent appointment being made, the Minister can nominate a temporary manager. The person appointed manager will also be town clerk. The Tuberculosis Committee will be dissolved and its functions transferred to the corporation. It will be the duty of the manager to furnish information to the mayor, attend meetings, advise the council, plan works which the council wish to have executed and control and supervise the staff. He will act by signed orders of which a record will be kept. All the existing separate funds will be merged in a new consolidated fund, referred to in the Bill as the municipal fund. A new municipal rate will take the place of the existing borough rate, poor rate and water rate. The contract water rate will remain. In order to preserve the existing partial exemptions as nearly as possible, the municipal rate will be levied on seven-tenths of the valuation of arable land or meadow within the city and on three-fifths of the half rents rateable under the Poor Relief Acts. The Bill provides machinery by which an application may be made by the corporation for an extension of the city boundaries and the determination thereof by the Minister.
Officers and servants of the corporation will continue to hold their positions on the same tenure as at present, but they will be under the control and supervision of the manager. Employees, if they have 20 years' service, are given the benefit of the provisions of Section 53 of the Local Government Act of 1925 and this power can be exercised within a period of two years, or longer, if the Minister, on the application of the corporation, extends the period.
Section 37 of the Act contains an important provision under which the corporation may acquire lands and drain them if they are capable of being improved by drainage and such improvement would increase the amenities of the city. The lands which the section is designed to deal with are the Kilbarry marshes which lie on the south boundary of the city. The marshes, which are over 200 acres in extent, are covered with water for the greater part of the year. This waterlogged waste is a menace to the health of the city, which is extending along the higher ground about the marsh. A scheme prepared under the Arterial Drainage Acts, 1925 and 1929 was rejected by the occupiers of the marshes. The drainage work should not present any great technical difficulties, nor should the cost prove to be prohibitive. The Bill is presented in the firm belief that it will promote the better government of the city and the efficient administration of the many services the corporation are now called on to administer.