When this Bill was introduced, we opposed it and sought to have the whole question of local government examined by a commission. Never once during the course of the debate on this Bill did the Minister attempt to give the House one reason to show that it was urgent, that it was imperative to enact it at this stage or that any vital principle of local government would be endangered if the enactment of the Bill were deferred. The Minister made no case for the Bill on the ground that it was urgent or on the ground that it had been recommended by anybody who had made an adequate review of local government. So far as the public were concerned, the Minister could scarcely get two dozen people to come out and say they were in favour of this Bill. Quite a number of members of the Minister's Party denounced the Bill. Quite a number of members of the Minister's Party on local authorities denounced the Bill. Quite a number of the boys organised in Cumainn said they did not want to have anything to do with the Bill, that it was leading to dictatorship and that it was in tune with some other undesirable developments they saw taking place through the instrumentality of the Government. Yet, a time of crisis which is labelled an "emergency period" by the Government is the time selected by that Government for the introduction of a Bill of this kind.
I should have preferred to have the whole matter of local government examined by a commission of persons with practical experience of the work of local authorities throughout the country who would be actuated by a desire to remedy any imperfections which might have been revealed in the administration of local authorities or in the manner in which their duties were discharged. An examination of a matter of that kind would have enabled us to obtain comprehensive reports on local government a review of local government as it affected other countries, and an opportunity of ascertaining the reactions of a managerial system elsewhere and its prospects of success here. But, instead of referring the matter to a commission to get some impartial examination of the subject, instead of fortifying himself with the report of a commission qualified to examine and report on the matter, the Minister took the most unusual steps of simply replying upon his majority to force through a Bill of this kind for which no urgency can be pleaded and which, I venture to say, on a free vote, the Minister could not possibly carry.
We are now asked to pass a Bill, the sole purpose of which is to concentrate all the power of local government in the hands of county managers. A member of a county council, a board of health, an urban council or a town commissioner, who feels that his function is to direct the secretary of the council, or the town clerk as the case may be, to do what the majority of the members desire, will, when this Bill passes, find himself in the position that in the future the secretary of the county council is going to tell the members what he is going to do and not what they are going to do. In future the members of the council may pass any kind of a flummery resolution they like, but the secretary of the county council, acting as county manager, will say: "I will consider that", and he may spend very little time considering it and he may give no reason whatever for refusing to carry out the expressed wishes of the majority.
Members of county councils and other local authorities who vote for a proposal of this kind are voting to accept a position whereby in future the county manager appointed by and controlled by the Minister is to tell the members of the local authority that they must do what he tells them to do, that it is his policy that is going to be implemented and their function is merely to raise the rate, to sign the cheques and, within the ambit of the cheques, he is going to carry out such policy as he determines is best in the interests of the area in which he functions. The members of the county council will be left with puny functions to discharge, functions which have merited the condemnation of members of the Government Party here when analysed in relation to the work of the Dublin and Cork Corporations. In future a member of a county council or urban authority will find himself in the position that he may be sent to that body by an overwhelming majority of voters, but when he gets there his power is merely to plead with and petition the county manager to do what an overwhelming majority of electors sent him in to do.
The members of the councils in the future are merely going to be rubber stamps for the county manager and we can well see the possibility of unscrupulous use being made by county managers of the powers they are getting under this Bill. The chief functions of the county councils in the future will be vested in the county managers. They will be all-powerful. They are being given power in this Bill far wider than the power in existing legislation in cases where city managers function. They will be given that power over areas in respect of which it is not possible for them to exercise control in any personal way. I will give the House one example. Under this Bill there is to be a county manager for Carlow and Kildare. In addition to managing the county councils and the boards of health he will also manage the Naas Urban Council, the Newbridge Town Commissioners, the Athy Urban Council, the Carlow Urban Council and the Muinebeag Town Commissioners. That is to be the function of one man.
Is it not quite inconceivable that one man could possibly be able to take a personal interest in the wide and diversified matters which would require to be dealt with in respect of all that territory, involving an examination of urban problems one minute and rural problems another minute and possibly problems that are partly rural and partly urban? He could not possibly carry out his functions over that area. He will probably appoint a number of subordinates and the subordinates will be just as impertinent to the members of the council as will the county manager under this Bill. Anything that is done at one end of the county while the county manager is functioning at the other end will be done in the name and under the authority of the county manager. His name will be utilised as the justification for doing certain things. He cannot exercise any personal interest in the matters that will be dealt with by his subordinates.
I do not think it is possible for the county manager system to work successfully on lines like that, and I still think it would have been far better if the Minister had this whole matter examined by a competent commission so that the House and the country might have a report from an authoritative body of that kind.
The Bill, it seems to me, will have another effect. It will weaken and deaden the interests of citizens in the machinery of local government. One of the immediate effects of the Bill will be to make it increasingly difficult to secure worthy, public-spirited representatives to serve on local authorities when they find their only function there is to carry out the dictates of the county manager and perhaps express mild opinions on puny matters which no public representative, whose services were in demand by anybody, would waste his time dealing with. Local government and local councils will tend to become places in which will assemble people who have nothing else to do, because nobody wants their services. Such people will be dragged in there in order to have the privilege of looking at the county manager and daring to petition him to do something for them, something in which they are interested.
I think the whole effect of this Bill will be to kill a live interest in local government. If we want to maintain a live interest in local government there are advantages in doing so. But passing this Bill is not maintaining a live interest in popular democratic government. By its passing we are killing that interest and blunting that desire to maintain popular and democratic representation. That is what a Bill of this kind is doing. We have the Taoiseach telling us one day about the benefit of parish councils and the diffusion of authority involved in that; after that we have a spate of oratory about parish councils and then we get a Bill of this kind the very negation of all parish councils and the very negation of popular representative government to determine the conduct of municipal matters. Instead of being allowed retain democratic institutions we are offered a Bill of this kind the effect of which is intensive centralisation.
That sort of thing has gone on here particularly during the last ten years. We are now handing over to the county managers powers which they cannot possibly exercise themselves, powers which must be delegated to subordinates and powers which must be exercised without any regard to the viewpoint of the popularly elected representatives or to the desires of the people whose money provides the wherewithal to maintain local government in this country. Deputy Bennett has rightly said that more and more our legislation is tending to take power out of the hands of the people. To some extent it is, perhaps, inevitable in the complicated system of modern municipal government that power is being vested in departments. In certain circumstances and under well-defined control power is given to do certain things by regulations. But this is taking control out of the hands of the people and putting it into the hands of Ministers and country and city managers to exercise it in the way they desire.
This Bill is another step towards taking away control and power from the hands of the people. It is concentrating virtually the entire power of local government in this country in the hands of a couple of dozen managers who will be allowed to exercise powers in a wide sphere of activity, powers which up to the present have been exercised by public representatives. I am opposed to this Bill because I think it is dictatorial in its conception and that its whole tendency will be to take a dictatorial line in local matters and to deaden interest in local government. To do that is to render a grave disservice to democracy and to public representation.
