I propose to comment on the Minister's Green Paper on Local Government Reorganisation published in February, 1971, the paper which proposed major institutional changes in the Dublin area and relatively minor institutional changes elsewhere. First of all, it should be pointed out that the Green Paper is, of course, silent on local government finance and on local taxation. It does seem that it is not proposed to allow the local authorities to administer their own affairs in future but it is intended, according to the Green Paper, to provide for a general restatement of what are known as the permissive powers of local bodies.
The system of local government has grown like a cabbage on multiple stems and its institutions have developed mainly as agencies for implementing the decisions and policies of national government rather than a system of local autonomy through locally elected democracy.
I want to submit to the House that the Green Paper does not advocate any significant change in local government institutions except in the Dublin area. It appears to be Government policy now to merge the now-dissolved Dublin Corporation—a corporation the members of which so stupidly dissolved themselves—Dublin County Council, Dún Laoghaire Borough Corporation and Balbriggan Town Commissioners into what can only be described as a mini-Dáil and to abolish also town commissioners generally and, perhaps, some of the smaller urban district councils.
I would submit that many of the marginal and functional changes within the Green Paper could, indeed, be implemented without any change in the existing local government code and, therefore, I think the outstanding characteristic of that Green Paper presented to the Oireachtas last February is that it is merely a small, relatively minor list of changes rather than the urgently needed reforms which we should have had before us long before now. No hint is given whatsoever in the Green Paper regarding possible relief for the domestic householder who has to provide for universal community services through an out-dated system of local rates or the possibility, which should be considered, that local authorities, for example, might be allowed to retain a percentage of certain taxes collected in their own areas, such as the road tax or, one might say, a motor fuel tax or, indeed, perhaps, of the proposed added value tax. Such consideration has not even been alluded to in the Green Paper.
Provision has not been made to give local authorities the resources to arrange for future normal standards of public services, amenities, development of facilities generally to meet the growing population pressures in the major urban areas. Certainly, there is very little consolation to the public authorities in the Green Paper in that regard.
I would have hoped that the Green Paper might have made general provision for the review of the system of local government and of government functions generally, or at least would have provided for some effective devolution of local functional autonomy. This does not exist, obviously, in Government thinking. There is no provision for any realistic local financial autonomy or for the opening to local authorities of schemes whereby they could increase their own total incomes.
Above all, quite unfortunately, the Green Paper makes very little provision for effective local democratic control and participation in the formation of policy at local level by local citizens, by locally elected public representatives, and certainly in the execution of functions the prospect of what we call participatory democracy at local level is almost marginal if not non-existent.
Therefore, I regret to say that one must be critical of the Green Paper. As well as making no positive suggestions for overdue reform of the system of local taxation, the Green Paper proposes that the local government system should continue to function without any real local autonomy and should continue to be dependent on specific governmental grants to provide and administer the local public services. It is significant that it is proposed to modify, but not to abolish, the ultra vires rule and while this rule remains there cannot be any real reform or change in the system of local government or any scope for developing local democracy.
I strongly feel that the local authorities which are now almost moribund in this country should be organised as development, administrative and general services authorities, having fairly substantial plenary powers of themselves and having reasonably extensive financial freedom and general resources. If we wish to be imaginative about local government, I do not think it is possible that local automony in functions and in finance can develop while local authorities are so exclusively dependent on specific Govvernment grants which must be used exclusively as the Government dictate and also while the sole source of revenue for local authorities must be limited to the revenue from rateable property, payable by a relatively small section of the community who are unable without hardship to pay the rate demanded and needed to maintain normal public services.
If one takes County Dublin, the county I am now most familiar with, one finds in a population exceeding 200,000 there are roughly 50,000 ratepayers. The anomaly is immediately apparent of a limited number of persons meeting the total servicing cost of the community. As the local authorities are obliged to provide and administer public services for the population as a whole it is inherently unreasonable, unfair and out-dated that local taxation should be confined so rigidly to householders and occupiers of buildings and land. There is a demand now from the political parties that there should be votes at 18: one might ask why should not the system of local taxation be extended to the population at large. The national taxation collection system is not so organised as to permit local authorities to impose surcharges on selected items of national taxation. This could be altered through legislation. There is nothing very novel about that. Although I do not favour the American system, I think there should be much more flexibility at local level.
In an attempt to be somewhat more positive in regard to the Green Paper I also suggest that local authorities should be given some plenary power to permit effective local government within their own areas. Local authorities should have power to make local decisions and encourage expenditure for the benefit of the inhabitants and the development of their own areas which are not specifically excluded or prohibited by legislation. These additional powers could be assumed through the adoption of local government statutes and the making of bye-laws which would be subject to annulment in the Oireachtas in the same way as any subordinate legislation. There should not be any distinction, such as unfortunately now exists, in local government between the powers and functions of local authorities in the urban areas and in rural areas. That distinction should be abolished. Functional parity would make most of the small urban authorities redundant; I accept that. These bodies should be replaced by what I would call general district councils operating for urban areas, large urban areas as well as the surrounding rural areas. District committees at local authority level are necessary and would be effective.
I know that it is proposed in the Green Paper to demote in status local authorities at urban district council level. They could be demoted but the functional freedom and functional operation of the whole district could certainly be much more effectively developed by such district committees as I advocate and which could be effective local government centres. This is essential.
Far too many relatively minor local problems and local projects of minute detail take up extremely valuable time at meetings of the major authorities. These major authorities should essentially devote their time to policy formation and then local district committees could deal with the relatively minor aspects at local levels. I have been appalled when attending meetings of Dublin County Council. I attended a number of meetings because I decided to see what the operation was all about. One would weep for the future of local government on seeing the operation of Dublin County Council. Certainly, I was not impressed by it.
Unfortunately, in the Green Paper the proposed abolition of many of the smaller authorities and the proposed introduction of a general metropolitan authority for Dublin and the rather vague concepts outlined in respect of local community committees, make the Green Paper in that regard a rather poor production. The languages of participation used in the Green Paper does not show any good intention. One section of the Green Paper says:
... to foster responsible and live local government; to create conditions in which there is maximum scope for local discretion and initiative; to encourage to the fullest possible extent involvement and participation in local affairs.
This is the good intention of the language of participation but I do not think the proposals made carry out that intent.
Another criticism that might be made of the Green Paper is that the very crucial role of the Department of Local Government is given very little analysis. There is no general discussion or clarification of the future role of the Department. I have every sympathy for the staff of the Department in regard to preparing any Green Paper, considering the gyrations of the former Minister, Mr. Boland, who, as I understand it, was violently opposed to the setting up of a metropolitan greater Dublin Council. I think it was only after his exit that the proposal appeared in the draft of the Green Paper.
Apart from the very competent analysis in the Devlin Report regarding the future of the Department of Local Government, the most striking characteristic of the Green Paper is the total absence of any decision within the cabinet on the future role of the Department. I have held that the Department of Local Government are the best of our Departments. They have had the benefit of strong-willed and tough Ministers for the past two decades and it is the most effectively organised Department. The level of expertise and the competence of the staff are to be admired.
However, an unfortunate gap in the Green Paper is the absence of any attempt to integrate the functions of the Department of Local Government with the proposed changes in the structure at local level. It is alarming that this document, which sets out to sketch the future structure of local government, does not contain evidence of any factual study or any field work done at local or departmental level. It does not contain any evidence that there has been research carried out regarding local government or into the future role and development of local community service organisations. The latter is a concept now developing in this country. They are not the kind of local committees envisaged by the Minister but are community councils which have sprung up spontaneously throughout the suburban areas. Their future is not analysed in any detail in the Green Paper.
One would have hoped that there would have been commissioned before now intensive general research under the auspices of the Institute of Public Administration, Foras Forbartha or the ESRI with a view to bringing about a major work with regard to general reform. At this stage it is difficult to comment extensively on the paper. I have no doubt that after the summer recess the Minister will let us know the final intentions of his Department in relation to the reorganisation of the greater Dublin area.
I have considered the proposal to abolish the Dún Laoghaire Borough Corporation. In the light of the information available to us in the Green Paper, I cannot go along with the proposal. I am aware that 70 per cent of local government services are rationalised at central level. Apart from housing allocation, the development of housing proposals at local level, the provision of day-to-day services at local level, and the provision of local amenities, most of the functions of the local authorities in the Dublin area are integrated and rationalised. However, in the absence of any detailed information in regard to a greater Dublin Council, I do not think any responsible public representative could support the proposals to abolish Dublin Corporation, Dublin County Council and Dún Laoghaire Borough Corporation without definite counter-proposals from the Minister.
I do not think citizens appreciate fully the extent to which many local authority services for the greater Dublin area have been integrated. One has but to consider the water supply or sewerage system in Dublin, the general health services, the roadworks system, planning and development controls in the greater Dublin area, or the fire services, to appreciate how extensively the services have been centralised. This is a factor people should bear in mind when they speak about the integration of local authorities.
In relation to Dún Laoghaire Borough Corporation, the Minister should urge the appointment of a permanent manager for that area. It is a large local authority with a population of approximately 53,000 to 55,000 people. It is not good enough that local government in the Dún Laoghaire Borough Corporation should be run on the basis of the assistant city and county manager coming out for a couple of hours each week to deal with managerial orders and for local discussions. What is needed is an assistant city and county manager who would visit the local authority three or four times weekly in order to enable the authority to work effectively.
Before any changes are introduced by the Minister for the rationalisation of the system, there should be extensive consultations with the trade union organisations who organise local authority employees. The collective experience and wisdom of such local government employees in resolving problems at local level should be availed of before the Minister goes ahead with his proposals. I am aware of the fact that local authority officials have made proposals to the Minister in relation to the Green Paper and it would be most unfortunate if the Minister were to take any precipitate decisions at departmental level without full consultation.
One of the difficulties we have at local authority level rises in relation to the managerial system. There is need to modify this system extensively so that decisions taken will be subject to some effective local democratic control. This could be achieved if there was provision that all managerial orders should be subject to either modification or annulment by local councils within a specified period in the same way as statutory instruments are subject to annulment by the Oireachtas. This is one reform absent from the proposals in the Green Paper and it is a reform the Minister should consider very carefully.
While trade unionists in local government would neither welcome nor tolerate interference in their own industrial relations or personnel problems, they would welcome the right of public representatives in local authorities to some effective democratic control over local decisions. All local authorities should have statutory conditions of employment in operation. This is essential. I think most local authorities would welcome advice and guidance from the Minister in this respect.
I am grateful to the Minister for the extensive memorandum of 15th January of this year dealing with development, planning reforms and planning control generally. There is urgent need—I stress this because I have had personal experience of this— to give local authorities much more effective power at local level to stop unauthorised development. They should have power to obtain court orders to stop such development. They should also have power to demolish unauthorised structures, deliberately erected in contravention of planning regulations and planning decisions. In some instances the developer proceeds flagrantly with unauthorised development. Local authorities should have power to remove these structures. I do not want any unduly authoritarian structure of local government, but I have seen developers in County Dublin and in the Borough of Dún Laoghaire driving a coach and four through planning and development orders and through court orders. That is not conducive to democracy and these developers should not be allowed to get away with this kind of development.
I will give an example of what can happen. Recently in the Borough of Dún Laoghaire a particular developer got planning permission to convert a house in Crosthwaite Park into seven flats. Having got the permission he then proceeded to convert the house into 14 flats. He is at the moment charging a rent of £5 to £6 a week for a basement flat and up to £7 and £8 a week for flats on the second and third floors. He is also charging a deposit of £60. He has converted a house of three floors into 14 matchbox flats with 14 tenants and he is getting from £80 to £100 a week in rent. He will make a profit out of the whole exercise, cock a snook at local court orders, avoid paying income tax, and get away with the whole thing long enough to make a handsome profit. A court fine will have little impact because he will have the money. Local authorities should have power to stop that kind of unauthorised development, development which exploits people's need for housing. These developers are prepared to take on the law and meet whatever fines are imposed because of the substantial profits they make from that kind of development. This is a position that should be examined very closely by the Minister.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach, Deputy Andrews, was critical, and rightly so, of the system of financing local government and the obsolescence of the present system. I do not think we can face the future in terms of effective local government unless the Government come to grips immediately with the reform of local financing. One area in which they could come to grips with the matter immediately is in the development of land. There is very urgent need for reform and where there is what one might describe as community created betterment of land such betterment should certainly be heavily taxed and the benefit from such land betterment should accrue to the local authority.
I have one example which would be of interest to the Minister. Recently one of the local authorities in the Greater Dublin area decided to drain a rural village of 100 acres at a cost of £6,000. As a result, the value of land in that village increased 17 times, from £400 an acre to £7,000 an acre. Formerly the value was roughly £70 per site. The net betterment value was £1,120 per site. I would stress that the investment of the landowner was absolutely nothing. This is Ireland in 1971.
In that setting we must put our priorities and our values in perspective. Why should the public pay, or why should any landowner expect to be paid ten times the value of a field to accommodate people instead of cattle, to put it that way? This is what is happening in relation to land which is being used for housing in the local authority areas. The local authorities should have the power to ensure at local level—and the Minister should agree that where land is bettered substantially by virtue of community development with local government money going into the general improvement of that land—no speculator, or no individual or for that matter no landowner, is entitled to get a feed back or a rake off from the taxpayers' investment in that land. This is what is happening.
Why should those who have mineral resources under their property, who bought land for £400, £500 or £600 an acre, by virtue of a fact of life in Ireland today get £5,000, £6,000 or even £20,000 an acre for that land and not even pay tax on it? Why should that type of situation be permitted to develop and continue? I would propose that there should be an extension of the functions of the Land Commission for land acquisition purposes in relation to land which is zoned or designated by the planning authority for the provision of community facilities. That is one of the reforms needed and I do not think I am going outside what is relevant to this Estimate by making that proposal.
I strongly suggest to the Minister that land which is zoned by the planning authority for non-agricultural purposes, and land for which permission for development has been granted, should automatically cease to be agricultural land for the purpose of the Valuation Acts. It should not be derated. This would be a major improvement in regard to local financing and it would stop the kind of speculation that goes on at the moment. There is no difficulty whatever in assessing the betterment value which accrues to a piece of land. A firm statement can be made of the public funds, either local or national, which are invested in public utility services. One can quite easily estimate the cost of drainage, of road works, and of water supply.
The local authority will have very little difficulty in assessing the actual betterment accruing to an area. This could be a major change. I would also suggest that we fail to use the rating system and that we should use it. We should modify it much more and not use it only as a system of revenue. If we used the rating system effectively we could discourage a great deal of land speculation, a great deal of land hoarding, and the retention of slum sites and slum buildings and derelict sites. We could use the rating system much more effectively to get rid of that kind of thing. This should be brought into public focus.
I am very worried at the moment about the means by which local authority land banks are currently being sold to private builders for resale to house purchasers. I do not think the current system gives grounds for confidence. It should be the subject of review by the Government almost immediately. I am not satisfied that it is the best system. I have considered a system of licensing builders generally for such development but, frankly, I am worried about the means by which local authority land banks are sold to private builders for resale to house purchasers generally.
I do not think very much of the current system. It should be reviewed by the Government and by the Minister. In that regard I might point out that the problems concerning land betterment, land banks and the situation in Dublin generally cannot be over stressed. The population of the aggregated built-up areas in Dublin county exceeds the combined populations of Cork, Limerick and Waterford together with the populations of a few other large towns thrown in. This is a point that is not appreciated either by our national planners or by Dáil Éireann. At present there are three new towns under construction in Dublin county and each of these will be as large as Cork. Again, this fact is not appreciated either by local authorities or by Deputies. These new towns will cater for the expected growth in population. The existing population probably exceeds 200,000, but there should be a considerable reassessment of the population growth in Dublin county in the light of the explosion that is taking place because at the current rate of development the population of the Dublin area within a period of about 15 years will be in the order of 1,250,000.
The Government's proposal to replace the four local authorities by a greater Dublin council would be the negation of democracy. If we get what we are supposed to get—a superstructure of the local authority which, in 15 years, would be catering for 1,250,000 people, this proposal could be regarded as the strangulation of democracy by bureaucracy. Certainly, that is a possibility.
In this House we are very critical of Northern Ireland, sometimes critical, destructively, of it in terms of their infrastructure but if Members of this House would only go to Northern Ireland and see for themselves the development and the growth centres there and if they could clear their minds of the horrible sectarian political conflicts of that area, they would have much to learn in terms of local government structure. They are at present reorganising their structure. As we know, they have two Houses of Parliament and in future their local government structure will consist of 26 district councils functioning for 1,500,000 inhabitants. If we contrast that proposal, the legislation for which is well advanced, with the proposal of the Government here to have a greater Dublin council catering for 1,250,000 people in the great greater Dublin area, the anomaly becomes farcical.
