Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 21 Mar 1985

Vol. 357 No. 2

Local Government (Reorganisation) Bill, 1985: Second Stage (Resumed).

Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

Mr. G. Mitchell

While I am pleased to see the creation of the new authorities in Dublin county I am sorry to see that an increased population is contained within the city boundaries and that the ratio of population to member will remain as high as 10,500 to one. On the other hand in County Leitrim it will be approximately 1.100 to one. I can understand the problems in County Leitrim and I know they need additional representation but the problem in Dublin is that local authority areas will be almost the same size as a three seat Dáil constituency. As I pointed out on the previous day, many people who are not interested in local government will seek election to the new Dublin city authority purely as a springboard into the Dáil. All of us who have been interested in membership of this House have had that in mind. However, we should use the opportunity of reform to try to create two streams of government. We should have a local government stream that has governmental powers at a local level and that also contains the local element. This is not the case at the moment. We are encouraging people to use the local authority merely as a vehicle to get to this House.

As practising politicians we realise the importance of the local authority to Deputies because of the size of the local electoral areas, leaving aside the point of Deputies having an interest in local affairs. Now we are encouraging people who have no interest in local affairs to get on to the local authority to keep their seat in the Dáil or to secure a seat here. I am sorry to say that the city boundaries are so large that it will facilitate these people. Many people say Deputies should not be councillors but I think an argument can be put forward in this connection. The same could be said about doctors, barristers or carpenters not being councillors. If a person has an interest in being a councillor he should be allowed to pursue that interest.

If we are seriously interested in supporting the functions of local government and central government it is not good enough just to say that TDs should not be councillors. Councillors should not simply go into local authorities of the size of the Dublin city local authorities simply as an access to the Dáil. If we are serious about trying to avoid two roles we have to make the Dublin city arrangements much more local so that it will really be a local government operation.

Presumably a further Bill will be necessary to set up the authorities in the Dublin region. I do not know the precise position of the Dublin metropolitan council as there are no legislative functions spelt out for it. Does the Minister have in mind a loose arrangement similar to that which pertains at the moment in the local authorities where they set up committees to deal with certain issues? It would be interesting to see the plans for the metropolitan authority.

In drafting this Bill we have not set up urban district councils for the areas of Tallaght, Clondalkin, Crumlin and Drimnagh where large numbers of people live. These areas should have urban district councils as there are more people in them than in most of the larger cities and they should have a measure of self-government. Without major expense we could have provided urban district councils in those areas and these councils could tackle, for instance, the problem of crime in formal co-operation with the chief superintendent in the area. In that way the elected people would deal at local level with the problems in communities and they would not have to depend on the knee-cappers or others to sort out their problems. In order to make society a better place in which to live we should involve the community in solving local problems. There should be statutory powers for the creation of councils in large conurbations around Dublin. I regret that this Bill does not cater for this situation.

These councils do not yet exist. It would be a good idea to pass this legislation and introduce the second Bill quickly. Until the authorities are set up there is not much point in holding local elections based on the new boundaries. If the elections go ahead it will be possible for people whose present constituencies straddle the new boundaries to opt to serve on one authority or another. It is ridiculous to elect people to authorities which do not exist and to give the elected representatives the option as to which authority they will serve. That element of this legislation is very unprofessional. If this legislation must pass we should ensure that at least in the local elections in June we can elect people to authorities that exist. If we must elect people to authorities which do not exist we should at least ensure that the second Bill is passed to set up those authorities before the summer recess.

I am concerned about a problem which will undoubtedly be exacerbated by the size of the local authorities in the Dublin city area. The problem I refer to is impersonation. Under this Bill there is a ratio of 10,500 people to one member. In this situation it it easy for impersonation to take place. For instance in the south inner city electoral area where there are large flat complexes and a huge turnover of population it is very easy for impersonation to take place. The small turnout that we usually have for local elections also make it easier for impersonation to take place. Because of the size of the electoral areas I have no doubt that with impersonated votes people will be elected to these authorities. I have no doubt that impersonation will be organised and it will involve blocks of flats with a high turnover of population and where people usually do not vote at local elections and we all know to what party the votes will go. From 50 to 150 votes can make all the difference in the local elections. The city is wide open for impersonation and people will be deprived of their rightful representatives because of this. I know the Minister and Opposition spokesmen are also concerned about this. I implore the Minister to try to work out a system to beat impersonation in Dublin city. In Northern Ireland they have introduced a system of identification. I do not advocate that but we could at least ensure in Dublin city that the tables are properly manned even if it means paying people from State funds. Those manning the tables could challenge people coming in to vote.

In relation to vacancies on the new authorities there is no reference in this Bill to co-options in the event of a vacancy. I presume the present system will continue where the councils just coopt somebody in the case of a vacancy. I would ask the Minister to consider including in this legislation or in the next legislation provisions whereby local communities would have an input in filling a vacancy on a corporation or a council. Since we are now creating in the Dublin area four new authorities I would ask the Minister to look at the powers of the chairmen of these authorities. The powers of the Lord Mayor in the city are pretty well enshrined not just in law but by tradition but chairmen of authorities should have specific powers. The Minister should consider giving such people powers so that the elected representatives will have some executive input into the running of local authorities.

When in Opposition I was spokesman on health board reform and I received a lot of correspondence and representations on the matter. Many people expressed the view that there was a lot to be done in the area of health board reform. I accept that view. It is an extra layer of Government which I question the need for. In the process of trying to sort out the local government mess which has been created, particularly in the Dublin area with one authority circling the city authority, we have gone some way towards sorting out that difficulty. However, on a regional basis we have a health board which covers the whole of Dublin and takes in parts of Wicklow, Kildare and Louth. I would like to see some local input and representation on those health boards. I would like to see greater representation on the district health committees which relate to these local authorities. More power should be returned to those health committees. The question of relating health boards directly to the new authorities should be considered.

Many local problems could be dealt with at a local level. For instance, dental problems for children, when they reach 15, or married women — I accept that there is a commitment to assist such people — could be dealt with at a local level. We should have a greater local input on health boards, which should work and operate on a local authority basis. I am referring in particular to the Dublin region. We should get our health services more streamlined and responsive to the needs of the community. It is possible that if we had more married women on such committees they would not have been left so long without the same opportunity as their spouse to avail of dental facilities. If local authorities and local government are to be local then health and other facilities should be on a local level. It should be possible to tackle the crime problem on a local level. The local authorities we are creating should be given power to deal with such matters.

With regard to the question of rates which will apply in this city and county, Deputy Molloy pointed out that there will be a problem because of the variation in valuations as between the city and the county. Parts of the city are being transferred into the county and parts of the county are being transferred to the city. The rate in the county is much higher than the rate in the city but the valuations in the county are lower than those in the city. When one multiplies one by the other one will see that there is a great equalisation. However, if one brings in higher valuations from the county to the city and multiply the valuation by the city rate there will be an enormous disproportionate rate of assessment. That will apply, in particular, to business properties unless at the same time that the Minister is redrawing the boundaries there is a revaluation of the existing rateable valuation on those premises.

That matter should be dealt with. If it is not the rateable properties within existing local authority areas will continue to be assessed at the rate struck by the old authority until there is a change in valuations. Indeed, it can work in reverse with the lower rate in the pound being multiplied by the lower valuation giving somebody a windfall in their rates bill. However, the problem of the difference in valuations and in the rate in the pound for the city and county will have to be dealt with in conjunction with the change in boundaries. The consequences of the change need to be spelled out so that we do not find ourselves with people suddenly being asked to pay enormously higher rates simply because the Dublin county valuation is being multiplied by the Dublin city rate in the pound. Nobody intended that or wants to see it happen.

I hope that when the next piece of legislation on local government reform is introduced it will be a reforming measure rather than a reorganisation Bill. The Bill before us changes the boundaries and reduces representation in the county of Dublin but it does not do very much to reorganise the city of Dublin. I am looking forward to the next piece of legislation to see what powers and financial arrangements there will be for the new authorities. I will be able to judge by that the reform that is proposed. Dublin is badly in need of reform as well as reorganisation.

Mr. Keating

Many of us have read with interest the contents of the Bill and the Minister's comprehensive speech last week. It is fair to say at the outset that discussion on local government reorganisation has been a permanent feature of debates here and in other fora for the last 20 years. Candidly, judging by the measure before us and what the Minister said last week it seems likely that we will be dealing with it in one way or another for some time to come. The essence of the Bill is not local government reorganisation but electoral boundaries. The thrust of Government thinking in relation to local government reform was outlined by the Minister in the course of his speech but, unfortunately, that is very much about the future rather than about the legislation before us.

It is fair to say that there was a fair measure of disappointment with the degree to which the Bill has dealt with issues of local government reform. While one accepts the good faith of the Government, and the Minister, in relation to future measures one has to feel a little rueful because we have had a number of promises from successive administrations about this matter and we are still waiting for serious local government reform. Local government, if it is to mean anything, should be local and governmental. It should be about areas that are small, about people who have a genuine involvement in and an intimacy in terms of their relationship with structures that are meaningful to them locally. Above all it should be about the maximum degree of devolved power to such structures. The central issue is the degree to which the Government of the day will have the wisdom or courage to truly devolve power to local government. I will believe that when I see it and I am not convinced that there is a seriousness of purpose in that respect by all Members in this House who, sometimes for noble reasons and sometimes ignoble reasons, are reluctant to give away power, particularly to the present local government structure. In some respects I do not blame them for that, but then we should not carry on talking about local government reform if we are not serious about it.

The Title of the Bill as presented, therefore, is somewhat a misnomer. The Minister spoke very elaborately and grandiosely about the halcyon days when a number of Bills will be introduced here over time which will make radical and major reforms to local government. What is before us at present must be seen as disappointing, particularly when one recalls that we accepted generally — some of us with better temper than others — the postponement last year of the local elections to allow the Government a further opportunity to consider this major issue. The Minister in his speech dealt with major issues in an ordered and constructive way, and his speech should be required reading by people who have an interest in this area. However, the Bill is slightly different and should not detain us at any great length. It is simply about the reordering of certain constituency boundaries in line with independent commission thinking.

I am not totally convinced that the independent commission idea has been an undoubted success, neither am I necessarily happy that the Government will, in these days when people in public life are very sensitive to public criticism, inevitably accept the thinking of such commissions regardless of what they may come up with. Independent commissions and independent thinking have a role, but it is the job of Government to govern and I urge Government not to be afraid to make appropriate changes to a commission's report if they believe that such changes are desirable.

In the case of the boundaries announced by recent commissions I can think of a number of cases where the thinking behind the proposed boundary changes is, to put it mildly, very muddied and in some cases it is very difficult to understand what the commission were trying to achieve. We should not as a House fob off our responsibilities to civil servants or others who are in no way publicly accountable in the way Members of this House are accountable. Whereas the disinterested approach has a role, it should not subjugate the job of elected representatives to make decisions ultimately in these matters and to be publicly accountable for the quality of those decisions.

The boundary changes so far as they go still do not deal with major issues of regional disparity. We should bear in mind that we have some quite extraordinary phenomena in relation to aspects of representation in our present local authority system. For example, the reorganised Dublin areas will still have a bigger electorate and a smaller number of councillors than or the same number of councillors as a whole county such as, say, Carlow has. That is somewhat bizarre particularly when one contemplates the fact that areas in Dublin have a density of problems and of social and economic challenge unrivalled in any rural area, although rural areas have their own difficulties. That kind of disparity could have been dealt with, but I suggest to the Minister that his thinking may be in need of some further examination. He suggests in his Bill a number of measures on a progressive basis which would bring about change in the area. He talks about making Government efficient and about the Bill here being the initial step in fundamental reorganisation of local government in Dublin plus electoral reform throughout the country. Even the most charitable among us would have to admit that it is a little highflown to suggest that the Bill before us could be said to be the initial phase of fundamental reorganisation of local Government in Dublin; but, allowing for latitude of language, that Bill is about boundaries. That is the beginning and end of it and we should not pretend it is any more.

The Minister said then:

The completion of the reorganisation in Dublin, including the transfer of functions to new councils and the setting up of a metropolitan council as a co-ordinating body, will be the subject of a further Bill.

Obviously, that cannot be effective for at least the next five or six years; in other words, there will not be local elections for that period of time. Therefore, local government can hardly be said to be an overriding priority in that respect. I am not clear as to how that metropolitan council are to function or be elected. That too is about the shape of local government and not its essence.

The third suggestion the Minister makes is additional legislation to effect reforms and improvements in the organisation and procedures of local authorities. That would mean covering such matters as the adjustment of urban boundaries, the setting up of new town councils, and extended functions for local authorities in certain areas. Again, this is a process of trying to order better the clutter which at present is local government in Ireland.

Fourthly, the Minister talks about an examination being conducted urgently of a means of effecting a substantative devolution of functions from the centre to the local authorities so that any necessary statutory provisions may be included in the legislative programme which he had outlined, and he went on to talk about the finance system which would underpin that. To my way of thinking, the fourth consideration which the Minister submits is the primary one and is the essence of what local government reform should be about. If we have a clear idea of what local government should be doing, what its purpose is, if it is necessary at all, then all the other things will flow from it logically. It does not make any great coherent sense to talk about changing boundaries, or in some cases reorganising functions, without having examined fundamentally precisely what the purpose of local government is, what we are expected to do and the most efficient structure for achieving those objectives. If the Minister's fourth step became his first then he might begin a serious development of our local government system in line with modern needs. If one asks oneself those fundamental questions then certain answers become clear. For example, if one looks at the traditional approach of local governmnet here one will see that it has developed very haphazardly and at present it is anachronistic, inefficient and disorganised in various ways. It is also fundamentally undemocratic.

We must have public accountability in this area, and we have not got it. Local authorities around the country spend of the order of £1,400 million annually in current and capital expenditure and there is no direct accountability, as there is in Government Departments, for that spending. In other words, those involved to some degree in administering that massive responsibility do not account publicly to anybody. There is no accountability by the officials, or the managers for the way in which they administer that fund except to part time, voluntary and in many cases unqualified councillors who have no executive power in that area. Neither is there any public accountability for staffing levels or efficiency or in relation to the systems that are in place or not in place for ensuring the best value for money for that vast expenditure.

It is incredible that I as a member of a local authority have a peripheral responsibility in relation to a budget of the order of £250 million this year for which there is no public accountability. Not one person involved in the day to day spending of that money can, except in the most oblique way, be called upon to account for how he or she, spends that money. That in a very haphazard way depends on a councillor intimating he has an interest and on the goodwill of officialdom generally, which is forthcoming but which cannot take the place of the harsh, cold reality of having to face the people and account for one's actions.

People who are members of VECs have responsibility for spending millions of pounds but there is no direct accountability to the public. Ministers who have smaller budgets than the total local authority expenditure must answer to this House and to the public. That extraordinary financial paradox exists and needs to be dealt with.

Local government is a haphazard system. In the last century we had a grand jury system. This was replaced by the present local authority system. These grand juries dealt with civil and criminal affairs. In 1817 civil affairs were separated from criminal affairs and county surveyors were appointed. We have had a haphazard labyrinthine development since then. Boards of guardians were later established and these were the first representatives of local bodies in Ireland, but they were only part elected. They ran local affairs in a geographical unit called a union. One can still see the names of these unions on lamp standards. It was the only attempt at that stage to carve out local government on a rational and utilitarian basis. It is time for us to have a radical and functional review so that we will have some kind of radical carve up analogous to what happened in the past.

It might be indicative of conditions at that time that the workhouse was the headquarters of such unions. Later on county councils, urban councils and town commissions were set up first with a restricted and then with a universal franchise. Changes in population have left these unions largely outmoded. We have a town commission with nine members for the town of Ballybay, which has a population of 550 people. There is a commission with similar number of members in Newbridge for a population of 5,000 people.

An Ceann Comhairle

It is difficult to get the line between what is and what is not in order. It is quite obvious that the Deputy is dealing with a large field which is far removed from the Bill before the House. The Bill is mainly about boundaries.

Mr. Keating

I will bear what the Chair said in mind. We have a haphazard system which has developed over time into a vehicle that no longer fulfils the needs confronting us. That can be exemplifed in a number of respects. For example, if one looks at the changes in population, the province of Leinster has increased its share of the national population from 39 per cent to 52 per cent — an amount almost equal to the entire population of Connacht and Ulster. However, the number of councillors representing the county councils, 27, and city corporations, four, have not kept pace with the population changes. Dublin, where 29 per cent of the population reside, is represented by only 10 per cent of county and city councillors. It has four local authorities: the city corporation, the county council, Dún Laoghaire Borough Council and Balbriggan Town Commissioners. The rest of the county is represented by 109 councillors. I would have thought that kind of fundamental functional reform could have been reasonably dealt with in the context of this Bill. Adequate time and consideration could have been given to ensure that that would have been the kind of proposal we would have been discussing today, but unfortunately it is not.

We have a lot to learn from the variety of submissions and representations that were made. I am sure the Minister must be daunted by the enormous volume of material which he received. It is not clear to me that any great consideration was given to it in relation to this Bill. If that can be synthesised in some way we can get on with what we should be doing, which is reforming local government.

Whether the Government will truly devolve power to local authorities remains to be seen. To do anything other than that would not be in the interest of local government or anything other than a vote of no confidence in local structures and in the people who are increasingly better educated in terms of understanding the way Government works and who, given the opportunity, are well equipped to deal sensibly with local issues. Issues which could be reasonably dealt with by local government include a variety of matters presently handled very expensively by central government. If one looks, for example, at the inspectorate functions of various Departments it would be the norm to send an inspector to carry out an assessment prior to approving a grant and subsequently an inspector would visit to see if the work had been carried out so that the grant could be completed. That results in people going from Dublin to remote rural areas and is obviously a highly inefficient bureaucratic system.

A recent Council of Europe survey gave a check list of functions administered by local authorities in different European countries, many of which could be handled by local authority structures. I ask the Minister to consider the possibility of devolving on local government some or all of the following functions: certain security matters; certain policing matters; certain traffic management matters; fire protection; certain areas of justice; pre-school education; primary and secondary education — even the relatively antiquated system in Great Britain deals with education, which we do not — vocational education; higher education; adult education; hospital and convalescent homes; personal health; family welfare services; welfare homes; town planning; refuse collection and disposal; slaughterhouses; theatres, museums; art galleries and libraries; parks and open spaces; sport and leisure pursuits; roads; urban road transport; ports; airports——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy mentioned roads and airports. He is on the wrong road himself at the moment. This Bill deals specifically with electoral matters and boundaries. There are other Bills forthcoming which will deal with the recommendations the Deputy has made.

Mr. Keating

I do not want to enter into a major discussion with the Chair.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy already had an indication from the Ceann Comhairle.

Mr. Keating

The Bill is entitled Local Government (Reorganisation) Bill.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

It is one of many Bills.

Mr. Molloy

It is a misnomer.

Mr. Keating

I suggest there are major omissions from the Bill. Is that in order?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Bill deals specifically with boundary reorganisation.

Mr. Keating

That is precisely the problem.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

You are referring to new duties and the decentralisation of different responsibilities. Those matters will be dealt with in further Bills coming before the House. I am trying to guide and assist the Deputy. I would be grateful if the Deputy would co-operate with the Chair. I appeciate the Deputy's concern but these are matters for another day.

Mr. Keating

I have listened to a succession of speeches which dealt with the issues I am now dealing with. I do not want to argue with the Chair.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

You are entitled to make a passing reference to these matters but not to go in depth into your recommendations on different aspects of local government.

Mr. Keating

I will bear that in mind. The title of the Bill is a misnomer. The Bill does not deal seriously with local government reform and reorganisation. I have yet to be convinced that there is a commitment to local government reform anywhere in this House. True local government reform would affect fundamentally powers which I believe should be devolved to local authorities and which are held at present in a very tight grasp by central Government down to approving the most meagre and minor grant for an extension to a home.

If we were serious about local government reform those are the issues we would be talking about in a Bill entitled Local Government (Reorganisation) Bill and not Mickey Mouse boundary changes which appear to put across the concept that local government wards and electoral areas bring people together in a unit which purports to be homogeneous. In the case of Dublin this would embrace people in Ballymun and Whitworth Road, Ashtown and the city centre, who have very little in common in terms of the immediate problems which confront them and who probably do not know of each others existence. Around the country there are councils with a smaller population and a smaller electorate than I hope to be elected to serve after the June elections. If that is local government reorganisation I am a Dutchman.

I am not suggesting that the Government are not interested and do not want to do the job. This is an urgent matter. In this Bill it is not treated with sufficient urgency. I am not convinced by the long, comprehensive and fascinating speech which the Minister made and which promised legislation. I can remember promises being made by Mr. Jim Tully when he was Minister for Local Government. I can remember promises being made in this regard by Members of the Opposition when they were in Government. Once again the same promises are being made. We should state whether we mean what we say. If we are not interested in local government reform, we should say so and not be codding the people.

I have no great comment to make on the Bill. It does not change anything. In some cases it tidies up some of the problems which confront us. If the other two tiers are introduced I suppose they will improve the linkages between various sections of the community and bring about a more intimate relationship with constituents. The change from 45 to 52 in the context of Dublin will not be a cosmic change. I suppose it is a step in the right direction. As Deputy Mitchell implied, since the new councillors will cover only a little less territory than hitherto, it is unlikely that Dáil Deputies such as myself will reduce our efforts on behalf of our constituents and there will be a continuation of the nonsensical clientism which we should have outlawed long ago so that we could get down to the job and make a serious contribution at national level. Nothing like that will change. We will continue to have four and five seat electoral areas and in one case in Dublin a three seat area. I am not sure that is a fundamental reform. If the Minister thinks it is, he is entitled to his opinion. We have a long way to go to confront the serious challenges of local government reorganisation.

The Minister should at least do us the courtesy of re-titling the Bill in accordance with the parameters which you have quite rightly outlined, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle. I hope that at some stage I will have an opportunity to talk about the essence of what this Bill should be dealing with, that is, local government reform, giving real power back to people and creating efficient structures to deliver what we think local government should deliver. That is not in the Bill before us this morning.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Minister of State, Deputy F. O'Brien.

Mr. Molloy

Is the Minister concluding?

Minister of State at the Department of the Environment (Mr. F. O'Brien)

No.

Mr. Molloy

I would be happy to let the Minister have the Second Stage of the Bill now.

Mr. F. O'Brien

I am amenable, but the order was made in the House this morning that the Minister would get in to conclude at 4.15 p.m.

Mr. Molloy

If the debate did not conclude earlier. There is nothing in the Bill. The Deputy behind the Minister made an honest speech. Let us not waste time debating it further. There is nothing in the Bill about local government reform.

Mr. F. O'Brien

I will start and the Deputy can take me up on any point he wishes.

Mr. Molloy

Is the Minister concluding?

Mr. F. O'Brien

No, I am not concluding.

Mr. Molloy

What is the point in dragging it out? Who will conclude on behalf of the Government?

Mr. F. O'Brien

The Minister.

Mr. Molloy

The other Minister?

Mr. F. O'Brien

An order was made this morning that the Minister would get in to conclude at 4.15 p.m. That is the problem.

Mr. Molloy

On a point of information, can the Chair tell me whether this debate must drag on until the time stated in the order or can it be concluded prior to that time?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The order is that the conclusion of the debate should be not later than 4.45 p.m. The Minister will be called on to conclude the debate on Second Stage at 4.15 p.m.

Mr. Molloy

When will the debate be brought to a conclusion?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Not later than 4.45 p.m.

Mr. Molloy

Do we have to wait for the Minister to come in here at 4.15 p.m.? Nobody else is offering.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I have no control over the Minister.

Mr. Molloy

We will have a Minister present. Will he conclude the debate? This is parliamentary nonsense.

Mr. F. O'Brien

The Minister indicated this morning that he would conclude the debate. I am making a contribution.

Mr. Molloy

On a point of information, I want to know what happens if no speaker is offering. Does the House adjourn until 4.15 p.m.?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

We will deal with that as it arises. I will allow the Minister of State to contribute on Second Stage and we will see what happens.

Mr. Molloy

The Minister should not blame us if the Bill is delayed. We are offering to let him have it now.

Mr. F. O'Brien

I should like to thank the Deputy for giving us the Bill so quickly. The Minister is at a Government meeting. I am sure if the Deputy wishes we could get him to come here and conclude now. Apparently other speakers wish to make a contribution.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Perhaps the Minister will get on with his speech.

Mr. Molloy

Perhaps we could get a better audience for the Minister than he has at the moment.

Notice taken that 20 Members were not present; House counted and 20 Members being present,

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I call on Deputy O'Brien, the Minister of State.

(Interruptions.)

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Carey, please. We have a quorum and I ask Minister O'Brien to commence.

Mr. Molloy

Deputy Carey was not in the Chamber and does not know what happened. He will have a job to hold his seat.

Mr. Carey

Deputy Molloy will never help me anyway.

Mr. F. O'Brien

I should like to thank Deputy Molloy for arranging an audience here this morning. It is a little over two months ago——

Mr. Molloy

On a point of information, before the Minister for the Environment leaves the Chamber, may I ask if he would be available to conclude the debate before 4 p.m.?

Minister for the Environment (Mr. Kavanagh)

I am attending a Government meeting at the moment——

Mr. Molloy

This House is important too.

Mr. Kavanagh

——and I am available at any stage to conclude the debate. There is no opposition on this Bill. The Opposition seem to have disappeared. They do not appear to be interested.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Minister O'Brien should be allowed to make his contribution. We can then see the developments as they occur and Minister Kavanagh will be available to conclude the debate.

Mr. F. O'Brien

It is a little over two months ago that the Government proposals for reform of the local government system were announced by the Minister and myself at a press conference. Since then two ad hoc commissions have started and finished their work on electoral areas in Dublin and elsewhere and the Bill now before the House has been prepared. I think there is a businesslike air about this progress that was very sadly missing from early approaches.

It is comical to listen to complaints from across the House about delays in bringing in reform measures. It was the Opposition party which published a White Paper on reorganisation in 1971, heralding a new era of prosperity and progress for local government. That party have been in power for almost seven years since then and nothing has been done, nothing at all by way of reform. This Government are intent on a comprehensive reorganisation and modernisation of the local government system to be brought about step by step. The first major steps are provided for in this Bill.

This is not a matter to be waffed about any more, but for positive action to be taken. The need for reform — in Dublin especially, but elsewhere also — is fundamental and immediate. The organisation of local government in Dublin has not changed significantly for over half a century. In contrast the population in Dublin city and county in a single ten year period from 1971 to 1981 grew by an incredible 68 per cent to the point where almost 30 per cent of the country's population lives in Dublin. Beneath this overall growth we find actual decline in the city population, reflecting social and economic change in the fortunes of the inner city area. Outside the city, while the new growth was broad spread, it was heavily concentrated in areas to the west of the city, referred to now as new towns. The rate of growth in these expanding areas has been above and beyond any previous experience in this county and has given rise to a whole range of developmental problems — growing pains of all kinds — aggravated in many cases by the economic and employment difficulties of the time.

There is a clear case for closer and fuller attention within local government to the problems and the needs of these areas than can be provided by a single county council of 36 members, with responsibility for a population in excess of 475,000 people, excluding Dún Laoghaire. The irregular shape of the county, surrounding as it does the city on three sides and effectively sundered by the city to a large extent, has aggravated the problems of representation and administation.

Deputy Molloy has tried to suggest that the measures contained in this Bill for Dublin are confusing and hard to follow. They are, in fact, quite simple for anyone who wants to give them a few moments thought. Indeed, they represent an imaginative approach to the highly complex challenge of achieving major reorganisation without having to wait — the eternal wait — while all the is are dotted and all the t's crossed. One of the sensible things that Deputy Molloy had to say was that rushed legislation is bad legislation. This is not rushed legislation, but if the Government had attempted to implement all reform measures at once, and to do that now, that would indeed have been a rushed job and a recipe for trouble in the future. Instead we are going to have the first major stages of reform to allow us to hold the local elections. I realise that this coming now has been a shock to the Opposition. They have been going on and on about when the elections would take place, about reform. Then when we introduce the first stages of reform necessary to get steps in line to allow these elections to take place, they are very critical. This has to be done. Earlier I conveyed thanks to the Opposition for giving us the Bill quickly and we do require it quickly to get all the paraphernalia of electoral boundaries, areas and the register in order for June next.

As I say, the basic proposals for Dublin are simple. The place of Dublin County Council and of Dún Laoghaire Corporation will be taken by three new county councils, as soon as all the necessary transfers and adjustments in property, finance, functions and staff can be arranged. This will require further legislation following consultations and detailed planning involving the local authorities and staff concerned. How soon the reform process can be completed will depend considerably on the outcome of these consultations and preparations and on the co-operation of the local authorities and of their staffs. Since the object of the exercise is to provide a stronger and better system of local government, I am confident that this co-operation will be readily forth coming.

In the meantime matters will take the following course—(a) Boundaries for the three counties will be determined under this Bill and power provided to implement the recommendations on electoral areas divisions made by the Boundaries Commission; (b) there will be elections in June to the three new county councils; and (c) the members elected will subsequently make up the membership of the existing Dublin County Council and Dún Laoghaire Corporation for the period until the three new county councils can become operational.

This is the only way this can be done because there is no way one can switch on three new local authorities overnight. There must be a transitional period. The obvious and right thing to do is to elect members to the new authorities rather than elect them to the old authorities and put it off for another five years. I believe it will be proved that we will have done the right thing in the way we are proceeding. There is nothing very complicated about that. It is undeniable that fundamental change is taking place but with proper regard to the complexities involved in giving full effect to such change. It must be ensured that there is a smooth transition. Full implementation will depend on further legislation as well as on the consultations and discussions with the interests concerned. Those processes have already been initiated and will be intensified in the period ahead.

The further legislation will also deal with the Metropolitan Council which will be nominated by the four mainline authorities of the future. With an increase from three to four in the number of the mainline bodies, there could be a risk of increased problems of co-ordination. It will be the role and purpose of the Dublin Metropolitan Council to obviate such difficulties and to promote fully concerted action where this is needed — examples would be in physical planning and in the planning of major infrastructure projects. The mainline authorities will remain fully responsible for the traditional range of local government services, subject to an effective co-ordinating role being vested in the Metropolitan Council. Details of this role and of the relationship between the Metropolitan Council and the mainline authorities will be spelled out in the further legislation to which I have referred.

I have already referred to the massive growth in the new town areas — Tallaght, Clondalkin, Lucan, Blanchardstown. I can say that the needs of these areas were high on the lists of consideration when the various options for reform in Dublin were being examined. Moreover, the lines of reform as decided on are designed to enable these needs to be satisfied as far as possible within the local government system. The Dublin Electoral Boundaries Commission was asked to advise not only on a system of electoral areas for Dublin but to fit the electoral areas to a system of districts. These districts provide the basis for development of a system of district councils and provision for this will also be made in the further legislation. The district divisions as recommended by the Commission will mean that there can be very close attention to the needs of the development areas. The pattern for the development of district councils and their relationship with the mainline authorities cannot be finalised until decisions are available on the question of devolution to local authorities, which is the next thing I want to talk about.

On the question of setting up the mainline authorities, particularly in county areas, there will also be two district councils dealing with areas such as Dún Laoghaire which will have its own district council, as will the Dundrum-Mount Merrion-Rathfarnham areas. Tallaght and Clondalkin will have their individual district councils, giving them a fair degree of autonomy. Blanchardstown, the other new town in that area will also have its district council. Within the city there are arrangements for six district electoral areas on district council areas which should dispel any fears that there is not real local government reform. Therefore, in essence, Dublin will have a three tier system. It will have its district council, its mainline authority and the metropolitan authority to deal with the co-ordinating problems.

People talked about what way such representatives will be elected. They will be selected from the mainline authorities, which is the better way to do it. If one elected a metropolitan authority that authority would tend to assume all of the power and to treat the mainline authorities, or the lower authorities, however one wishes to call them, as the poor relation. In my view that would be disastrous and it has not worked satisfactorily in other countries. I believe it would not work well here either. It is essential that there be a co-ordinating body. Otherwise mainline authorites would be duplicating, something we do not want to see happen.

With regard to the district councils, they will devolve a lot of responsibility and power to local communities, getting communities involved, getting local people involved in their areas on a whole range of matters affecting them. I wonder if those people who say there is no semblance of reform have read what has been said in this regard, because in his opening speech the Minister referred to the whole range of the programmes and there must be a whole range of programmes in this respect.

Since the question of devolution was mentioned by a number of speakers I must refer to it because otherwise I might be seen to be ignoring this area. I am talking about the devolution of power from central to local government. Any system of local government reform or any move in that direction must involve a good deal of the devolving of power from central government. Deputy Keating mentioned one instance of grants for housing. It is obvious that this sort of matter should be dealt with at local government level.

Mr. Molloy

On a point of information, if we are to have consistency in the debate surely the intervention of the Chair regarding the contribution made by Deputy Keating should apply also to other speakers.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I allowed Deputy Keating to make a passing reference to this matter and I assumed the Minister also was only making a passing reference. It is not a matter for the Chair if Deputy Molloy anticipates a long contribution but I would recommend a passing reference only.

Mr. F. O'Brien

I considered that I should respond to the remarks made in this regard because Deputy Molloy and Deputy Keating also were critical of our system of reform. It is important to put on record what we are doing and what we intend doing in that regard. We are involved in the whole question of reform.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

We are concerned here only with the reform of the boundaries.

Mr. F. O'Brien

Deputy Molloy dismissed the whole issue as being trivial and farcical but that is far from the truth. Our intention is to bring about a comprehensive reform of local government.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Bill relates to the question of the boundaries and I have already brought Deputy Keating to task in that regard. I would expect the Minister to confine himself to the question of the boundaries as outlined in the Bill. There may be other Bills to come before the House which will give both the Minister and Deputy Keating an opportunity of speaking on these other issues.

Mr. Molloy

In other words, cut the waffle.

Mr. F. O'Brien

I am happy to abide by your ruling, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, but so far as Deputy Molloy's remark is concerned, we know where the waffle comes from. With respect, Deputy Molloy was allowed a lot of latitude, but I would not have objected to that because ultimately he said nothing. His record in this whole area is available to anyone who wishes to read it. It has been his plan to abolish urban councils and town commissioners. In these circumstances it is hardly fitting for him to sit there smugly and lecture us.

Mr. Molloy

The Minister should have the facts.

Mr. F. O'Brien

The Deputy's track record in this whole area is very sad. As soon as his backbenchers and Fianna Fáil councillors realised what the Deputy had been trying to introduce, he ran quickly for cover.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Perhaps the Minister would confine himself to the Bill.

Mr. F. O'Brien

There have been allegations that the Bill is bad legislation and that it is being rushed through, but there has been a lot of consultation in this respect and elected representatives have been invited to make representations to the local commissions. They were given time to do so. Some very good submissions were received and I am confident that the commission took these into account. It is far from correct to say that the legislation was merely cobbled together. The Bill was carefully thought out.

I consider the way we are dealing with the Dublin boundaries, for instance, to be very effective. This will bring about tremendous changes in the whole area of local government. Regarding Dublin city, some speakers have suggested that there will be a crossing of boundaries between the city and county after the elections, that because of the straddling of boundaries in certain areas people elected for the city area may have to sit in the county area. That is not correct. The Bill deals with the city of Dublin in toto. It will result in the additional areas from the county being taken into the city so that after the elections the Dublin city boundary will be properly in place and there will be no crossing of that boundary. The county operates as one area anyway so there will not be any problem in that regard. The only difficulty that could arise would be in regard to there being additional members elected for the whole area but these will be able to sit and operate as a council. They can sit also as individual bodies for the purpose of setting up staff and administration structures and so on.

There is a whole range of operations in which the new councils can engage pending further legislation and dialogue between local authorities and staff on the question of finance and so on. Therefore, there will be ample work for them to do in their new county areas. This will give an opportunity also to the councillors to have regard to the district councils with a view to determining what powers they should have and how they might play a major role in the whole question of reform.

This piece of legislation is very important. It is the first step in the move towards overall reform of the local government system. The Opposition are not good in terms of reform. This is evident from their performance in other areas of legislation. They do not like change. They prefer to leave matters as they are, but that is not our attitude. We are complying with our commitment in the matter of reform and we have made considerable progress since we postponed the elections last year. We promised we would have the elections in June of this year and that is why it is necessary to have this legislation which deals with the boundaries. We had to bring it forward at this time in order to have everything in place. The most surprised people were the Opposition. They were continually saying it could not be done, that we had not the will to do anything about the matter and that we would postpone the elections for a further 12 months. Despite many assurances they would not believe us.

The legislation is before us now. While it deals with Dublin to a considerable extent, it also involves Galway in that it gives the city a higher status which was long overdue. The commission also looked at Cork and Limerick but they did not get the necessary agreements there. However, there will be expansion in those boundary areas to bring the environs of Cork and Limerick into those cities. There will be further legislation to set up a boundary commission to look at all towns to ensure that their environs have some relevance so far as the towns are concerned.

Considerable legislation will follow this measure. I understand the time constraints operating here but I am sorry I did not have time to talk about devolution. However, I will do so in the future. I can well understand why the Opposition do not want to know about this because it is the real meat in the reform we are undertaking. We will have a comprehensive devolution proposal before the elections so that people will know exactly what we mean by reform. The Opposition will have to swallow the pill of reform. What we will propose will be comprehensive and imaginative and it will have a tremendous effect on the whole issue of decentralisation, giving local democracy and local government a real role to play for the first time.

Mr. Kenny

This small Bill touches a raw political nerve. County council boundaries and membership of local authorities have been sacrosanct for many years. The wielding of the scalpel on this occasion, although by an independent commission, has been awaited with bated breath by many councillors and would-be councillors and by many Deputies and would-be Deputies. The fact that the commission were given the brief to draw new boundaries will not and could not please everyone because of the physical contours of the land and the allegiances of the various representatives. As the Minister pointed out, this Bill is the first of a series of measures to reorganise and reform local government. He made a passing reference to the state of the nation at present. We are dealing with antiquated and outdated legislation. It is blatantly obvious to everyone, whether he be a member of a local authority, a town commissionership or urban district council, that something should have been done in this area a long time ago and from that point of view this first Bill is welcome.

The reform of local government should have been tackled years ago. A paper was presented on this matter 13 years ago and many fine recommendations were made in that document. The Minister spoke of the necessity for reform and to the fact that local government systems are there to serve the needs of society. I do not think people in Ireland really appreciate the significance of local authorities in the same way as do people on the Continent. There the words "local authority" are taken in their true meaning, in that authority has been devolved to local level and authority for various measures is given to representatives on local authorities. In Ireland local authorities generally rubber stamp what comes from central government. For instance, in County Mayo the amount of money required to run the county and to pay for services this year——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I do not like to repeat myself but this is the third time the Chair has had to intervene.

Mr. Kenny

Yes, I understand. I am making only a passing reference. The amount of money required to run County Mayo will be £35 million while the rate element in that is only £1.5 million. In his speech the Minister referred to the needs of society. I hope that the next Bill will refer to the areas of education and justice and the expansion of the existing role of local authorities. I am glad the Minister referred to the regional development organisations and the various other State agencies who also have boundaries and which overlap the district electoral divisions all the time.

The terms of reference of the commission are broad. They were:

1. To revise the representation... with a view to ensuring a reasonable relationship between population and representation within each local authority without reducing the representation of any electoral area...

3. (b)... to seek in the first instance to remedy such disproportion by minimal boundary changes as between neighbouring electoral areas taking due account first of the desirability of preserving natural communities or the hinterlands of population centres, and, secondly of the desirability, where it may be possible to do so, of aligning county electoral area boundaries with Dáil constituency boundaries.

The minimal changes proposed in County Mayo reflect this tidying up of Dáil constituencies. The portion of the district electoral area which is now in the Castlebar district electoral area will be transferred to the Swinford electoral area for local government purposes. This will create a balancing of the disproportionate population there. It will also tidy up to some extent the Dáil constituencies, in that the total area being transferred to the Swinford district electoral area will henceforth be part of the East Mayo Dáil constituency boundary.

In some cases the commission would not have an intimate knowledge of the physical characteristics of areas they have transferred. It would seem more logical if the section proposed to be transferred to the Swinford area had been left in the Claremorris district electoral area and if some shift of population was effected from the other end of the Claremorris district so that there would be a more natural affinity between these areas. The commission have sought to do otherwise for their own reasons.

Points have been raised by councillors that the proportion of represented people will not be equal from county to county. County Clare has a population of 87,567 and the commission have proposed to increase the number of representatives from 31 to 32. That means that the present council representatives represent 2,825 people each and under the new proposal that number will be reduced to 2,736 people each. I know that there are special considerations as to why the Commission chose to give a special councillor to County Clare and I do not begrudge the county its extra representative. However, when we consider that County Mayo with a population of 114,766 is represented by 31 councillors giving a representative level of 3,702 per electorate representative this illustrates that there is a difference in the level of representation by local representatives. I do not understand why the Commission did not have a closer look at the equalising of the numbers of representatives per head of population. There are differences in the sizes of counties and representatives on local authorities in many parts of the west have to represent people residing in vast areas. Other representatives representing smaller areas would find it easier to keep in touch with their constituents.

I am glad that the Minister referred to the adjusting of the urban boundaries. Many towns increased in size and population over the years and this problem should have been tackled long before this. The Government are to be commended for their action in tackling what has been up to now a sacrosanct area which touches a raw political nerve. In relation to the electoral boundaries I accept that the Government have adopted the commission's report but in many cases another look at the boundary changes would be in order so as to keep natural areas represented by the same authority. I commend the action of the Government in having produced this Bill which is the first step in a series of reforming legislation in this regard.

Mr. Durkan

I welcome this Bill which will give legal effect to the boundary changes. This is an important Bill, though most people will regard it as only the initial stages of local government reform which is a very involved question. If we look at the functions of local Government and examine how effective it has been since its inception we will know that local Government has not been effective. The whole structure is totally outdated and unworkable because of the demands being made by the public and central Government. I am a Member of a local authority and in my short time on the local authority I have seen the slow but inevitable diminution of power in the local authority by virtue of the removal of the right to raise and spend money.

This goes back over a number of years. What has happened is that with increased demands for expenditure on roads, health services and so on in the fifties and sixties there was a greater need to rely on central Government to provide the funds. It was easy for local public representatives to say that they would send a deputation to the Minister or that they would write to him and request more money to spend on national primary routes or national secondary routes. As a result of that, the responsibility for the maintenance of the national primary and national secondary routes was taken from the local authorities and handed to the Exchequer. What local authorities did not realise was that that was the first step in the diminution of their powers. They presided over it and I take blame for being a party to that process. We felt that by getting the money elsewhere we still had the same power to spend it, which is farcical. Once we sought financial assistance from the Exchequer, we sought help in every sense, and the Exchequer would not be fool enough to hand out money to local authorities without maintaining strict control over it.

Local authorities cannot have power and autonomy without responsibility. There is ample evidence to suggest that there are still areas where some people think that they can. For instance, at estimates, for reason of political expediency people will vote against the book of estimates which contains provisions for services which the local authority wish to provide in the current year. The same people, five minutes after the vote, will put forward a proposal to spend money they voted against and will demand money for the provision of services. It is very easy for politicians to pander to the public but it is a dangerous thing to do because the public will lose any respect they might have had for us if we say all the things we think they want us to say and promise to do all the things that they want us to do. The two are incompatible. If we do all they want us to do, we will have to spend money but if we say all the things they want us to say we will say that we will not raise further taxes to provide the money to carry out the works. This is something that always amuses me. It is a pity that some years ago local authorities generally did not take the bull by the horns and recognise that if they were to maintain control of their own destinies they would have to hold the purse strings, take the unpalatable decisions and impose local taxes, if necessary, to provide the services the people requested.

I have been amused in recent times to hear members of the local authority of which I am a member loudly proclaiming the need for more expenditure throughout the financial year, demanding that the money be obtained from some source or other and decrying the fact that it is not made available; but at estimates meetings they blandly vote against the county manager's estimate. They vote against the estimate because, as they say, it proposes to impose a local services charge. It is worth nothing that the imposition of a service charge is not the prerogative of members. It is an executive function and a county manager can at any time impose a local charge.

An Ceann Comhairle

What the Deputy is referring to is related to local government but whether it is relevant to the Bill before the House is doubtful.

Mr. Durkan

The Bill deals with boundaries and they are a superficial element of the whole structure of local government. It would be dangerous for us to assume that the Bill by any stretch of the imagination goes any way towards resolving the problems that exist in the local government system. That is why I have been trying to illustrate the extent of the problem as I see it.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Minister referred to the matter being touched on by the Deputy and that has made it somewhat relevant, but it is not a matter that can be the subject of a full dress debate today.

Mr. Durkan

The Minister dealt with it in his speech.

An Ceann Comhairle

I recognise that.

Mr. Durkan

I am making passing references, albeit extended ones, to matters referred to by the Minister.

An Ceann Comhairle

Passing references are in order.

Mr. Durkan

It is important to recognise that there are people, including politicians, who believe that the provisions in the Bill will resolve the problems that have caused concern to local authority members. They will not. The changing of the boundaries will mean that the ratio of public representatives to population will be better — and that is very desirable, particularly in rural areas where public representatives have to cover big areas — but it does not resolve the problem of local authority structures. They are more fundamental than that. The most important element of local government reforms has still to come.

The Minister referred to the extended functions of local authorities. In my experience down the years local authorities have been handed more responsibilities but were not given the finance to carry out those duties. For example, under the Litter Act and in connection with water pollution control local authorities have a duty, but they are finding it difficult to live up to their responsibilities due to the fact that they do not have a proper financial structure.

Some years ago we had county health committees but they were phased out and replaced by regional health boards. In any local government reform I would like to see a new structure that would fill the same role that health boards have in regard to health committees. The Minister should consider giving statutory powers to regional development organisations. I am not talking about building up administrative trappings such as went along with the establishing of health boards, but there is a need for a coordinating authority to control physical planning and development. Such an authority should, if necessary, be in a position to enlist the aid of local authorities and be able to produce firm guidelines in regard to planning control. It should be able to identify development potential in areas. Various Governments commissioned reports on this, but unfortunately nothing has been done about them.

I appeal to the Minister to give serious consideration to this area. It is easy for us to be wise with the benefit of hindsight. It is easy for us to be wise in the light of developments at places like Ballymun and Tallaght. We can decry the fact that those developments took place without proper planning. The problems that exist in those areas arose because the development did not take place on a planned basis. It took place because a developer, as he was entitled to do, acquired a large tract of land and got permission to lay a sewer and other services. That is not the way to carry out such development work. I must emphasise the importance of giving recognition to regional development organisations, who could fill a useful role in this regard. I am not suggesting that we should create an administrative tier that would become a burden on the local authority system. Many other matters come to mind but it is possible that if I raised them it would be held that I was not confining my remarks to the provisions of the Bill.

Mr. J. Leonard

I accept that the debate on the Bill is limited. There has been a lot of talk down the years about the need to reform local government structures, but while we all accept that there is a need for reform the greatest problem facing local authorities at present is the lack of finance. The functions of local authorities are being restricted as time passes. The adjustment of the boundaries are minimal in rural areas compared to the changes proposed in urban areas. In County Monaghan the commission prior to sitting asked the councils for their views. In view of the shift in the population of Monaghan town and its hinterland we recommended an extra seat in that county council electoral area. The commission under their terms of reference were not allowed to create any additional seats, and they adjusted the ratio of population per member. A similar situation had arisen in Cavan and its hinterland and part of the area there was transferred to the adjoining electoral division. That caused problems to sitting councillors who were making a very worthwhile contribution. In such situations a tolerance should be allowed for a minimal increase in representation rather than an adjustment to boundaries of electoral divisions which have been in existence for a long time. By means of an increase or reduction, as the case may be, in the number of seats, the adjustment of the boundary could be avoided.

The problem facing local authorities is a growing demand for increased services and lack of finance to meet that demand. The services will have to be restricted unless additional funding is forthcoming. To keep our roads in County Monaghan at the 1974 level we need another £1 million. Every local authority faces a serious funding position, and that is the crux rather than the number of elected representatives. The Minister should ensure that the elected representatives on the county councils have the authority which it was intended they should have and which is being diminished. For instance, no matter how long councillors discussed the charges, the county manager had the power to impose charges as he thinkes fit. Either you give the clout to the elected members or you do not. They feel very ineffective when they know they can discuss a subject for hours to no effect.

Generally speaking, the views and decisions of elected representatives are fairly responsible. I hope that the automony which they were intended to have over the years will be granted to them. I hope also that the Department will not in future renege on their responsibilities in the question of giving a contribution in lieu of rates on domestic dwellings and agricultural land. I hope they will honour that commitment and give at least the inflation rate percentage in each case.

Mr. Carey

The Minister and the Minister of State claim, rightly, that the commission they set up were efficient and did their work in a relatively short time. It was good to see quick movement in regard to my constitutency of County Clare where the boundaries have been completely reorganised. The effect of that reorganisation has been to give greater representation to the more remote areas, that is to say, that the power of the centre — the real growth area, which is the town of Ennis — has been reduced in the new county council plan. This means that 17 of the 32 councillors will represent the coast, the west Clare area. I believe that the commission in their approach here have listened to requests of local councillors who want greater representation for the rural areas. After all, the county council system has been of great benefit to politicians. Many Deputies in this House started their political career on county councils. Councils have been a great asset also to democracy. They have been platforms for various processes and for many a new idea.

However, I noted with regret that the commission recommended that Limerick Corporation be given an opportunity to annex approximately 3,000 acres of County Clare. In any revision of boundaries in the future the people of County Clare will resist totally any attempt by Limerick County Council to expand into County Clare. Apart from the geographical examination, the commission should have considered the reasons why Limerick County Council and Limerick Corporation could get together first and establish their boundaries. I believe that the commission were sensitive about the boundaries in Limerick city and county and acted accordingly; but the Minister and the Minister of State when drawing up this new local government Bill and examining such problems as exist in south-east Clare and Limerick Corporation could consider a sharing of services. No Clare man worth his salt would ever agree to a commission proposal that 3,000 acres of our county be annexed by Limerick Corporation. I ask the Minister to assure us that when this matter is to be examined the views of the people of County Clare and of their public representatives will be taken into account.

The Bill is timely in that it is part of the local government reform which the Programme for Govern- ment 1981-1986 included. I agree with the Minister that this attitude is businesslike. However, I am more concerned about the reorganisation in county councils. Representation on local committees has been confined to one party in Clare County Council. Since the foundation of the State Fianna Fáil have given no representation to Opposition councillors. I appreciate that in other counties also the Government parties do not give adequate representation either.

Mr. Lyons

Like Galway.

Mr. Carey

I agree with Deputy Lyons, like Galway except up to the 1979 election.

Mr. Lyons

What about the two Ministers of State?

Mr. Carey

Fianna Fáil succeeded in getting 55 per cent of the vote in County Clare at the last local government election. They took all the committee seats except those we were lucky enough to get on the health board by virtue of the fact that the former President, Mr. Childers, was more democratic than the other members of Fianna Fáil. I am sure he looked aghast at the carry on of the Unionists in the North of Ireland taking all the posts, but in Clare we have suffered the same way. Since the foundation of the State Fianna Fáil have taken everything. I hope when the Minister brings in the other Bill he will see to it that representation is given to minorities on the various committees. In County Clare even the professionals were denied representation by Fianna Fáil on the committee of agriculture and the health committee.

Like other Deputies I am concerned about the financing of local authorities. The person who contributed to the downfall of local authority financing is the same man who wasted our time this morning, the former Minister for Local Government, Deputy Molloy. He started the downturn in the funding of local authorities in 1971 yet he came in here and claimed that the Minister was not doing his job and that the Bill would not bring about any reform.

When the people see the challenge before them they will take part in the local elections and I expect there will be a big turnout.

Mr. Nolan

I welcome this Bill and hope it is the first part of local government reorganisation. I compliment the commission which was set up to look at county council and local authority boundaries. They carried out their duties in a workmanlike manner. The fact that they were able to carry out the job within a specified time, prepare a report and present it to the Minister reflects great credit on everyone concerned. When I think of the other commissions that have been set up in my short time in the House and which have not yet reported, this commission gives me hope.

The boundary changes have been carried out as well as they could be. I wonder if we should set up a commission to look at the question of county council boundaries. The current boundary structure of county councils is outdated. Take a small county like Carlow where there are a number of different districts and areas. The Garda have two districts. If one is in the north of the county one is in the Naas district and if one is in the south of the county one is in the Waterford district. The ESB have two districts, south is Waterford and north is Portlaoise. An Bord Telecom have three districts with two different prefix codes. We are in the South Eastern Regional Development Organisation. Carlow town is in the South Eastern Health Board area but if one goes one mile to the west of the town one is in the Midland Health Board area. If one goes a mile north one is in the Eastern Health Board area.

Urban district councils and town commissions should be upgraded to district council status based on the town and its natural hinterland. Larger towns with populations of over 15,000 should be given borough status to become autonomous local authorities. While there is a big difference in the population represented by county councillors from one county to another — in Carlow we have a ratio of 1:2,000 while in Cork there is a ratio of 1:4,500 — on the whole the commission have done a good job.

Finance is the biggest problem. We will not oppose this Bill but when the question of reorganisation of local authorities and financing comes before us we will go through the proposals with a finecomb. Where we feel the Government may be mistaken in some of their ideas we will oppose them.

There is general frustration among county councillors at the erosion of their powers. Many public representatives dedicated to local government no longer see useful roles for them to play in the system. A further problem is that unless it is substantially changed the existing system will fail to attract candidates of a sufficient calibre to ensure a strong democratic local government system. It is in the interests of central and local government to ensure that the system of local government develops beyond its current state.

Apart from the gradual erosion of county councillors' powers there are other restraints impeding their input. The first major constraint is practical and financial. The level of backup support available to them to enable them to carry out their duties is inadequate. This places considerable financial strain on elected members and acts as a disincentive in terms of attracting members of the public to run for public office. There are considerable discrepancies in local authorities in terms of support available to elected members. Each elected member should be entitled to a guaranteed level of support irrespective of what local authority the person represents.

I commend this Bill and look forward to it being the first part of the reorganisation of local government.

Mr. Kelly

The part of this Bill which interests me is that which proposes to bring in a new regulation on the question of representation on the committee. The system which the Minister proposes in the Fourth Schedule is needlessly complicated. I have never been a member of a local authority and have no ambition to be, but it seems to me that the right way to nominate members of local authorities to committees of any kind is on a strictly proportionate basis. It may be ignorance that inspires this comment, but I would like to hear why it is not thought feasible to prescribe in very simple language that nominations to local committees should be carried out on a PR basis, a system with which we are all familiar in Dáil and local elections.

I know the Minister is taking a step — it is not as far as I would like him to go — towards trying to ensure that we do not end up with only one party representation on local committees. He will have to go a great deal further than that in order to dispel the image of dog-in-the-mangerism which characterises local government for many people.

When I came into the House a few minutes ago I heard Deputy Carey talking about the situation in Clare County Council ever since the State was founded. There are other councils like Galway where the very same was true until recently. I have no doubt there are councils in which Fianna Fáil were kept out for as long as anyone was capable of doing so in the very same way. The more one fumes about that, the more devalued one's voice becomes and the less notice is taken of one. It is quite intolerable that the people's government, at whatever level, should be carried on as though it were not the people's government, but the government run for the benefit of the politicians who take part in the game. That is not what they are there for. It seems to be an index of how little the people care about local government, how little real importance it has for them, how little they really feel it affects their own lives, that there is not a public outcry about that system.

There must be people in County Clare who do not give a damn about politicians one way or the other, who do not care what crowd are in or out, but who object, on principle, to the staffing of a vocational educational committee or whatever else it may be on the political side by nominees from one party only, and who feel that it makes for a less efficient committee. If they felt these committees meant anything real in their lives, there would be an outcry about these things. It is quite intolerable. It is a disgrace to this House and a disgrace to Irish democracy and to the system which the people who went before us worked so hard to achieve and, in some cases, gave their lives to achieve.

That is not the only instance of dog-in-the-mangerism, though it is one of the worst. An even worse one is the long hogging of county council or borough council chairmanships with which, I am afraid, this Bill does not propose to deal. It is quite wrong that for 20 years there has not been a Fianna Fáil Lord Mayor of Dublin. That is not because I see any particular virtue in Fianna Fáil; I hope I do not need to make that plain. It is because I recognise that roughly 35 per cent, and sometimes more, of the people of this city tend to vote for that party. Why should they not occasionally have a Lord Mayor of their own political colour?

The same was true for many years in the opposite direction in the city of Cork. It is absolutely intolerable that we have to wait until a squabble develops between the two Coalition parties in Dublin corporation, in such a way that the Labour people rethink their local strategy, before Fianna Fáil can get a smell of the mayoralty. I am not saying that in order to disarm anybody on the far side. It is just as intolerable when the same thing happens to us. Could we not put all that Paddywhackery and Tammany Hallism behind us and drag ourselves into the kind of world in which the rest of the people have to live? They regard this whole structure of dog-in-the-mangerism and poltroonery with contempt. They resent having to pay for it.

Why is it that journalists find that it makes a welcome headline and something which will pass a sub-editor's scrutiny when they are able to report that county councillors from a county that has nothing higher in it than a two storey building are off to an international conference in Delhi about high-rise housing? It is not because they begrudge a public representative, who is doing a serious job, the serious acquaintance with the outside world which he really ought to have. It is because they do not see them as doing a worthwhile job but as in there to try to hog whatever is going on the backs of the ratepayers that they resent it. Probably that is an unfair perception, and I do not say I entirely share it; but that is the reason why they resent it.

I said in this House before that when my brother was a member of Dublin Corporation, which he was for one term, he told me that having innocently travelled to Helsinki to a housing conference he found that the Irish contingent, gathered from the forty or so councils we have, outnumbered the rest of the world put together.

An Ceann Comhairle

That is getting a little away from the Bill.

Mr. Kelly

The fact that people resent that, but do not care very much about the political hogging of committees, is an index of the standing of local government and of the people who take part in it. It may be unfair. It may be a perception which is unjust to the people who do a good job. I have no doubt it is, and I am willing to be contradicted and put right about it by people who have first-hand experience of local government which I have not got.

That dog-in-the-mangerism extends in other directions as well. A good few years ago I had the experience of going to a civic reception in Dublin at which I could scarcely see any politician who was not of my own colour. There were about two Fianna Fáil councillors there, and they were like the ugly sisters at the ball. The room was filled with sparkling Coalition Cinderellas, if I may put it that way, and there were two or three ugly sisters over on the side lines. Perhaps they did not look at it that way, but out of charity I went over to talk to them because nobody else had a word to throw to them.

Mr. Lyons

The Deputy is a very charitable man.

Mr. Kelly

I hope it will be accepted that I am making that point against my own side. It is every bit as bad and as scandalous when it happens the other way around. Surely we could grow up and realise it is the people's money which is being spent for a purpose which is supposed to be in the people's interest and for their benefit instead of — as though any of us was short of the price of a drink or a holiday — in small ways trying to steal a march on one another and milk the old sow I spoke about a few years ago and which I have not been let forget.

An Ceann Comhairle

I do not mind whether the Deputy talks about dames or sows so long as he relates them to the Bill.

Mr. Kelly

I am speaking on a Bill which, believe it or not, is called the Local Government (Reorganisation) Bill. The only reorganisation in it that I can see, with respect to the Minister, is a certain amount of juggling about with the title of the Galway Corporation, with boundaries and the number of members. I do not mind ascertaining that these are all matters which are of stupefying indifference to the vast majority of people. At most, they regard an increase in the number of councillors as an extra burden which their unfortunate humped back, weighed down as it is by other burdens, will have to carry. That is the light in which they look at it. Very few of them care where the boundary of any local authority is drawn. Perhaps even in Galway very few of them care whether their city authority is called a borough council, or a county borough council, expect the people who are in the game themselves.

I know all that will not be welcome to the Minister or anybody else on my own side. I am trying to be as impartial as I can about it. In the context of this reorganisation Bill we ought to consider what kind of a reflection it is on us — I do not mean just on the Government I am glad to support, but on all of us here — that when we think in terms of reorganising local government the first things we think of are seats and boundaries.

On the day the report of the commission or whatever it was came out, I heard a former Fianna Fáil Minister saying in indignation to somebody else: "Do you know that 1,500 people are being taken out of the town of Oughterard and moved into Connemara?". It was almost as though you could hear the roar of the engines of the Wehrmacht lorries as unfortunate people were loaded up over the tail-gates with many a hearty prod from a field grey uniform and a rifle. All that was happening was that, instead of being given one crowd of politicians to vote for, these 1,500 people would get another crowed of politicians to choose between. That is what is meant by "shifting people". That is the preoccupation which is uppermost in the minds of the people involved in this business. I would have thought it was far more urgent for us to ask ourselves what is local government for and what is it all about. Ought we not get clear in our minds what the task of local government should be, and what we can afford to confide to people elected at local level, before we start to decide how many of them there should be, or where the boundaries of their electoral districts should be drawn.

I will not lecture the House about the history of local government, but local government was introduced by the British in 1898 more or less in its modern form as part of the move to "kill Home Rule with kindness". The local authorities set up around 1898 were one of the main targets for the humour — I never found it very funny; I do not like that kind of condescending humour — of Somerville and Ross. Their humour is near to the mark to this extent, that early local government representatives in this country were not infrequently corrupt and very frequently incompetent. So incompetent were they, in fact, that in 1940 Mr. de Valera, who was no Fascist, stripped them of nearly all their powers. He left them their tricorn hats, their chains, their gowns and their coaches, but vested nearly all their powers in managers. They were left with a certain number of powers, the main one naturally of taxation but even that has been removed, not because of incompetence but because of the political desire to remove rates from residential premises. What exactly is left of the whole local government structure which justifies its very expensive continuance?

I am not recommending the abolition of local government or councils or anything of that sort, but I am recommending that before talking about numbers or boundaries we should ask ourselves what is the whole thing supposed to do. There is a principle known as "zero budgeting" which I have heard discussed, in and out of Government, as being the correct one on which an Estimate should be constructed. Instead of taking last year's figure for the Department of Fisheries, Defence or whatever, and building on it, souping it up by the appropriate figure for inflation, every Department should go back to zero, should assume that they have not 6p and should make up their bills from that point. They should say, in other words, "We have to have an army with so many men in it and we must pay them so much and provide them with equipment; that means we must have an irreducible sum of £x million", and likewise with the Naval Service. The Department Estimates would be built up in that way. I should like, not in terms of budgeting but of constructing a local government system which makes sense and which the people will respect — because that is not the case now — to "zero budget" our local government structure and ask ourselves what it is supposed to do that cannot properly or usefully be done by ordinary officials under some proper system of judicial, or ombudsman, or other type of control.

I do not want to be interpreted as saying that there is no room for locally elected people. I am not saying that at all. I am saying that the zero point at which we should start is to calculate what we are getting out of this system which costs a fortune to maintain, what with premises, overheads, expenses and so forth, that we would not get out of it — what advantage are we deriving that we would not have — if all these functions were discharged by permanent, paid officials subject to a proper system of judicial or administrative control? There may be some things that we would be lacking, perhaps benefits that we would be foregoing, but what are they? How heavily do they weigh in the scale, compared with the expense of the whole structure? That question is not intended to be a rhetorical one to invite a negative reply. When we decide what role a locally elected body can usefully discharge that we cannot get otherwise, let us create that function and give it to that locally elected body. That is how we should start.

The main function that I see within the reach of the locally elected body is little to do with maintaining roads or allotting so many tarred roads per councillor of which you can nominate the situation — did you ever hear the like of that? Even the British could not have thought up that much kindness to kill us with. It has to do not so much with the designation of roads to be tarred, or even the striking of a rate, but the encouragement of economic and, to a lesser extent, of social improvement in their area. With that in mind — and I have spoken about this here often before in one shape or form — I prepared a submission which I discussed two months ago with the Minister of State, Deputy O'Brien, to the effect that when we finally get what I might call the real Local Government (Reorganisation) Bill, even it does not abolish the councils which are the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth wheels of the coaches, even if it does not abolish anything, it will add a tier — and this will be a meaningful, useful tier — to the local government structure — namely, one of District Development Councils in which the members will be unpaid and will not even get their expenses.

I know that there will be an objection that "you will not get people of the right calibre". This country is kept on the road in no small part by voluntary effort. Subtract this and the country is a jungle. This is done by people who get nothing for their work and do not even expect recognition for it. All kinds of charitable, cultural, educational, even to some extent economic organisations like credit unions, are run on that basis. I cannot see why, in the area of local government, it should be the economy and the development, exploitation and maximisation of the potential of localities which will be the one thing excluded from their scope. That is something which people are well able to understand. Most people are in business of one shape or form connected with agriculture, or some other form of business or employment. The thing will make some sense to them. I am not going to bore the House with a description of my own suggestions, but it should be tried even if only experimentally, or as a pilot scheme in one or two counties or areas, to see whether that would produce a result which will justify us in maintaining a local government system and being proud of it.

I know that I have spoken rather negatively. Some of these are matters which I have been waiting for a long while to get off my chest. The Minister knows me well enough to realise that I have a great regard for him and for his work, and I know that he will not take anything that I have said poorly, negative though it may have sounded. I hope that he will not be long following this Bill with one which will be of far more interest to the people and will show us what local government is supposed to be all about, and will reform it in a more sensible direction than at present.

Mr. Lyons

Is éan ceannteideal atá ar an Bhille seo os ár gcomhair ná "An Bille Rialtais Áitiúil (Atheagrú), 1985." Ní fheicim aon eagrú, beag nó mór, sa Bhille seo.

In saying that there is no real local government reorganisation whatever in this Bill, I propose to show that the title of this Bill is a misnomer entirely. It is, in fact, a restructuring of electoral areas, the addition of a few seats here and there and the subtraction of others. I am of opinion, rightly or wrongly, that in many instances — and I am familiar with my own county — there is a little effort at gerrymandering to suit the parties in Government. I make that charge because speakers before me here suggested that, in regard to some councils where particular parties or individual parties have a majority of members, in new legislation the Minister would put some sort of regulation on them that would tie their hands further than has been done already by, for instance, the 1983 Act introduced by the Government in not allowing elected Members the democratic right to decide within their local authority who is to be the chairperson or the lord mayor. I hope that the Minister will not harbour ideas of bringing in legislation or regulations which would prevent us members of local authorities from using our democratic right to decide who are the people to be elected to these positions.

There is no doubt in anybody's mind that local government needs reorganisation. It needs it in the widest possible spectrum and scheme of events. It needs reorganisation particularly after the happenings of recent years in relation to the financial situation. In that regard I might say that this Government took it on themselves to be the first Government to reduce from 100 per cent the grant in lieu of rates to local authorities. Since they first started nibbling at the 100 per cent grant in aid to local authorities the financial situation of local authorities has suffered enormously. In order to counteract its effects they introduced the 1983 Act giving the managers, mind you, power to raise the balance or shortfall by imposing service charges. If I understood some other Members speaking here this morning they wanted to extend this idea of taking further power from the elected representatives of local authorities, such as was contained in the 1983 Act. Of course, this is nothing new to Coalition Governments. Let me remind them that in the 1953-55 era the Local Management Act was introduced, as they put it then, denying further responsibility, but I contend it was denying democracy an opportunity of being manifested in the elected members of local authorities.

I have said already that local government warrants reorganisation; that has been asserted over a long number of years. There have been many reports and proposals submitted to various Governments over the years. Where are these reports or proposals? Where are those submissions? Are they gathering dust in the Custom House? We are now presented with a Bill entitled Local Government (Reorganisation) Bill, 1985, in which there is no reference to any of the structural reorganisation required in local authorities. I support the idea that reorganisation is needed. We were told by this Government at various times in the past year that the reason the local elections which were due to be held last year were not being held was because of this massive reorganisation that was taking place. We were led to believe that, by virtue of such local elections being postponed, we would have such an organised local authority system that we would hardly recognise it, at least that was the implication. Everybody assumed there were little beavers working away in Departments restructuring our local authority organisation and systems. Of course we welcome the holding of the local elections; we prodded for them all last year and so far this year. We have succeeded in having introduced this Bill, which as I have said is a misnomer and we now have the date set for the holding of the local elections.

With all due respect to the members of the two commissions, all of this should not be attributed to them. It is my belief that they had very little input into this Bill, simply because, from the date of their appointment, bearing in mind the date by which they had to make their recommendations, which was by the end of February, they could not have examined even one local authority in the detail that was necessary, let alone examine those of the entire country. It is unfair that it should be contended that the commission are responsible for the mish mash revision we have got of local authority electoral areas. That is all this Bill constitutes and it should have been appropriately named because it does not constitute reorganisation such as we understood would be forthcoming.

I shall not even attempt to deal with the chaos proposed for Dublin. I listened to the debate here last week and the contributions of people representing the Dublin area, including our spokesman on environment. It would require Aristotle to understand what is going on in the Dublin area. There is one underlying factor in all of this, that is that the carving and delineated areas show a particular favour to some Members and I shall not go any further than that; I am sure everybody knows what I am talking about.

There was mention of what is happening in various local authorities as a result of the election of chairpersons. An extraordinary situation obtains when it suits the Taoiseach and the Government to tell our two Ministers of State in Cork County Council that they must relinquish their posts while their two colleagues on Galway County Council are allowed to retain theirs.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

With all due respect to the Deputy, we are not dealing with electoral boundaries.

Mr. Lyons

I know the provisions of this Bill are very limited and I have been expressing that view since I began. But there were passing references by other Deputies on the Government side of the House to what is happening in, say, County Clare, County Galway and elsewhere. I am referring to the inherent inconsistency, in that the Government tell their Ministers of State to retain their seats on Galway County Council, lest they lose any advantage, with the support of the Sinn Féin man, so that they will not meet at Leinster House when he comes up on a deputation. There is some reorganisation needed. We in Cork County Council demanded that our two Ministers of State vacate their seats. We will give an example to the Department if that is what is needed. I am not suggesting for one moment that the Minister should stipulate that no local authority can conduct their own business. If that type of legislation was introduced here I. and I hope my party, would oppose it because that would constitute the democratic right of elected members to conduct their business in their own areas being taken from them.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

That must be the conclusion of the Deputy's passing reference.

Mr. Lyons

The position is that they are elected on the basis of proportional representation. That was by way of preamble to what I wanted to come to, which is how much we are in agreement, that is all parties in Cork County Council — the largest unit of elected members outside both Houses of the Oireachtas — 46 in all. We made a submission to the commission. We had indications that what was to happen in County Cork had been decided even before the commission received our submission. In accordance with the terms of reference of the commission we made our submission to them contending that representation in any county electoral area was not to be reduced and if disparities in population numbers per member arose, the situation was to be met by altering the boundaries of electoral areas. We contended that if that did not meet the situation then extra membership in some areas should be considered. We are aware also that the terms of reference of the commission included a condition that constituency boundaries would not be breached, that electoral area boundaries would remain as they stood.

I say to the Minister that he, his Department and the commission were most unfair to the unanimous submission of Cork County Council, of 46 members, and I know of nowhere else in the country that that sort of submission was made. For the benefit of this House I should say that County Cork is divided into three health divisions of north, south and west. We recommended no changes in the north or west but, because of the increase in population in the Cork rural electoral area which forms part of the southern division. We recommended two extra seats in addition to the existing eight, making a total of ten. We suggested that it be divided evenly, five seats in each of two subdivided electoral areas. In addition there was the condition that no electoral area should have more than seven members. We took that into account.

When I am making my criticism I am referring to the Minister and the Department because it would be unfair of me to say that the commission decided differently, though the issue is probably being presented in a way that indicates that they decided and that instead of two five seaters we should have a six seater and a four seater. There was a carve up in the Cork electoral area by way of the hiving off of part of the parishes of Ballinhassig, Dunderrow, Ballymartle and Novohal and putting them into the Bandon electoral area, into the South-West Cork constituency. So much then for maintaining boundaries where practicable. Not alone was the original electoral area divided but part of it was removed from Cork South-Central to Cork North-West. Ovens, which is further north, was taken from its natural compact area in the vicinity of Ballincollig and put back into the South-West area thereby breaching the constituency boundary.

Why have we not been consistent in the terms of reference? There is an unacceptable divide in the Cork electoral area, and Cork County Council have said so. They have asked for a deputation from the council to be received by the Minister. It was decided at Monday's meeting of the council to send a telex message to the Minister to that effect. Who but the Cork elected representatives would know what is best for Cork, and they reached their decision unanimously?

Without reservation I must condemn the carving up of the Cork electoral area and to part of it being put into South-West Cork, which is a different constituency. Parishes and close knit communities have been divided despite the terms of reference indicating that no such divisions should take place. I do not know whether the commission are still active in this matter but, if they are, I appeal to them and to the Minister to reconsider the Cork county electoral area on the basis of the submission from Cork County Council. If I had any indication that they could be met in their submission I would refrain from further comment on the matter. It looks as if there is a very good chance of the Labour Party filling one seat out of six but their chances might not be so good in the case of two five seaters. It is a sad day for democracy if that is the basis of the division in the Cork rural area. The council were unanimous in their very reasonable decision that the constituency should be one of two five seaters. This hurried and very short Bill falls far short of what is required by all of us, that is, reorganisation at local authority level.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The memorandum indicates that this Bill is the first in a series of legislative measures necessary to give effect to the Government's proposals. There are many other pieces of legislation to come in that regard and that is why the debate is limited.

Mr. Lyons

I thank the Chair for his advice. We can say justifiably that the record of the Government falls far short of their promises and commitments in many spheres, including local government. I would not give any credence to promises made by this Government in regard to the introduction of further legislation at this time. If there is any difference of opinion within the Government in this regard, the relevant legislation will be shelved. I suggest that the reason for bringing in this Bill is that the Government cannot afford to postpone the local elections again and that since the elections are to take place this year the Government have probably taken the line that they should at least introduce this Bill which might give some advantage to the Government parties. Though we are not far now from local election day there may very well be a bigger event before then. There are many reasons one can think of for not being confident that this is the first of many pieces of legislation in the area of local government. We have been hearing of the reform of local government for the past 20 years and the Government have been in office for seven of the past 11 years.

Mr. Kavanagh

What about the Deputy who is sitting beside Deputy Lyons?

Mr. Lyons

I am asking the Minister to reconsider what he did to the Cork electoral area.

Mr. Kavanagh

I did nothing to Cork or to any other county in that respect.

Mr. Lyons

On the other hand we are glad of the opportunity of the local elections. I am confident that by way of the ballot box on June 20 the people will make their judgment on the mid-term performance of the Government. The people know what has happened to their country while this Government have been in office. They will be glad of the opportunity to express their condemnation by electing many anti-Government candidates, including many from our party, to show their distaste, distrust and horror of the performance of this Government who made many promises.

We are disappointed that there is not more local government reorganisation proposed in the Bill. There must be sufficient data in the Custom House in many reports and submissions during the years on local authority reorganisation. This was promised by the Government when they postponed the elections in 1984.

Tomás Mac Giolla

As the previous speaker said, 18 months ago we were advised that the local elections were being postponed and the reason given was the need for local government reform. Nobody believed that at the time. It was realised the elections were postponed because it suited the Government to do so from a political point of view. Their prospects did not look good in 1984. During subsequent months there was speculation that this was the first opportunity since the State was established to deal with local government reform, altering the structures, powers, functions and financing of local government to make it suitable to the needs of a modern state, in particular to the rapidly growing population we have now for the first time since the Famine. We had hoped that the subject of local government reform was exercising the mind of the Minister from the end of 1983 through 1984 and we expected that a local government reform package was being worked out.

In the autumn of 1984 I recall that much concern was expressed by Fianna Fáil Deputies that the local government reform package was not coming forward. it was asked how the Minister expected to bring it before this House after the budget and get it through in time for elections in June 1985. At the time it was said there was no possibility that the Minister could get such a major local government reform Bill through the Dáil in time for the elections in June 1985 and Fianna Fáil made this point very vigorously.

In November we had the first indications that the Minister's proposals were coming forward and it was seen that they were very limited in scope. Fianna Fáil's reaction since then has been that they were generally in agreement with the line the Minister has been taking. There has been little pressure from Fianna Fáil Deputies on this matter since then. In fact, there has been a great silence in the past three months, at a time when the Minister was implementing the Government's proposals and ideas before anything was put before the House. Through January and February and up to now decisions have been taken and then this piece of paper is put before us. We are supposed to rubber stamp it and then we are all set for the local elections. There is no hassle about getting it through now.

I find it amazing and extraordinary to consider what is before us now. At least the Minister admits and recognises that it is not local government reform, because he calls it local government reorganisation. If he had told us this in 1983, we would not have had any problem in seeing precisely what he had in mind — local government gerrymandering of one kind or another, which is what he has come up with now. We were speculating for 18 months about this major local government reform. The Leas-Cheann Comhairle has pointed out that we are only dealing with one aspect of local government reform——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

We are dealing with this Bill.

Tomás Mac Giolla

We are dealing with only one aspect of local government reform in this Bill and we have been told that other Bills will be introduced. For God's sake, why are they not before us now? That is the whole point of local government reform. Not alone do we want to know what are the structures, we want to know what powers they will have and how they will be financed; and we want to know that when we are discussing this Bill. The answer we get is that the Bills will come after the local elections when the new councils will be elected. Then they will be told what are their powers and how they are to be financed. That is not local government reform in any serious way, about which this House can talk and debate. There is no point in saying we are limited in our discussions on this Bill, that we are dealing with only one aspect and that major reforms will come in the future. If the major reforms with regard to functions and financing are anything like the kind of stuff that has been put before us in this Bill, then we can forget about it. It is only a joke, as this Bill is only a joke.

We have heard much talk in the past five or six years about the alienation of young people from Government and local government: we have heard how they are alienated from politics and politicians and the question is asked how we can communicate more with those young people and make government, politics and politicians meaningful to them. Local government is one area where one can come down to the level of the real needs of people and where we all can be involved in the process of government. This is what local government is about. Deputy Kelly asked that very question. If it were simply a matter of administration there would be no point in having any local government whatever. We have a population of only three million and the Department of the Environment could handle that matter quite easily. There are much larger local government areas in Britain and in Europe than the whole of this country. If it were simply a matter of administration we would be far better off to abolish all local councils and have managers and administrators, but obviously that is not what local government is about. It is about people, their needs, desires and rights and how they can have some structures in which they can be involved at least in the small immediate areas of their own environment. They may seem small on a national scale but to people their environment is more important and is a subject of debate among them to a greater extent than major national issues of unemployment, taxation and the foreign debt.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I hesitate to interrupt the Deputy but I have reminded previous speakers — and the Chair can do nothing about this — that this Bill deals mainly with the revision of boundaries. I appreciate the concern of the Deputy regarding the need for local government reform but there will be another day for that. I ask him to confine himself to the terms of this Bill which deals with the revision of boundaries. I agree that passing references to other points are allowed but the Deputy has gone into detail regarding the need for local government reform. I ask him to please co-operate with the Chair.

Tomás Mac Giolla

I find it very difficult to adhere to that restriction. We have waited for 18 months and local elections have been postponed to hear about local government reform. However, now we are told we cannot discuss that subject.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy, we are dealing with a Bill, not with local government reform.

Tomás Mac Giolla

We are dealing with local government reform.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I do not want to enter into controversy with the Deputy but the Bill before us today deals basically with the revision of boundaries. While I appreciate the Deputy's concern for local government reform, it can be referred to in passing but it cannot become the principal item under discussion. I have already said this to at least six Deputies this morning. I would ask Deputy Mac Giolla to co-operate with the Chair. The Chair has no control over what Bills come in here. I am dealing with only one Bill today and it deals with electoral boundaries.

Tomás Mac Giolla

I protest. When a Bill of any kind comes before the House one is entitled to discuss not only what is in the Bill but what is not in it but should be in it.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

A passing reference can be made.

Tomás Mac Giolla

Not just a passing reference, but what is in the Bill and what is not in it. On Committee Stage one can put down amendments inserting items and taking things out. I am talking about things that are not in it but which should be in it and which the Minister should have taken into consideration. I cannot understand the Chair restricting me. The Chair is saying that this is a very restrictive Bill and he is quite right. That is precisely the point I am making.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Might I refer the Deputy to the memorandum which says that this Bill represents the first in a series of legislative measures dealing with local government reform?

Tomás Mac Giolla

We are dealing with the structures of local government. This is the first item relating to a major reform of local government. When further legislation comes before us in this area we will have an opportunity to make the points we wish to make and we will probably be told that this has nothing to do with local government but has to do with finance and so on. However, let us deal with the structures put before us. Let us deal with this famous boundary commission. The Dublin Regional Council of The Workers' Party made a submission to the boundary commission on 8 February 1985 and pointed out that we were "concerned at what can only be described as a blatant attempt to gerrymander local government in the greater Dublin area by the Coalition." This was before the boundary commission sat. The submission continued:

While doing this they have tried to cover it up by establishing an independent boundaries commission to advise on the location of minor boundary changes, and whose terms of reference are so limited that they have virtually no function.

We urged the commission to refuse to operate the terms of reference and not to allow their integrity to be abused by the Government. That is precisely what has happened. Their integrity was abused by the Government in imposing such restrictive terms of reference on them in regard to boundary changes. The Coalition are using alleged reform to attempt to gain electoral advantage. Further on this document says:

The major decisions they have taken concerning Dublin City and County were taken behind closed doors, without initiating any public debate, and apparently with the connivance of Fianna Fáil if one is to judge by their silence. Both the manner of these changes and the nature of them raise grave doubts about this Government's commitment to local democracy. The Labour Party of course have once again for short term electoral advantage reneged on their own longstanding local government policies.

The Government's proposals are unacceptable therefore to The Workers' Party. The three new county council areas they propose bear no relationship to established community identities. Their proposal to carve Howth, Sutton and Baldoyle was done without consultation; their proposal to double the number of seats in the county area while only marginally increasing them in the city creates an undemocratic imbalance in representation.

This proposal will result in one councillor representing 6,000 people while in the city one councillor will represent 10,500 people. This is not only undemocratic in itself but it will be further aggravated because the Minister's proposed Municipal Council will be ‘drawn' from amongst these councillors in the City and County. Their proposal to establish this Municipal Council is of course also undemocratic and is perhaps the most blatant gerrymander.

In summary this Government has made decisions affecting local government organisation which will make it less democratic and more remote from the people, and they have established an independent commission whose options are so limited that its only function can be to legitimise the Government's approach.

That is precisely what has happened. The Government gave terms of reference so restrictive that they were using the names and the integrity of the individuals to put a stamp of democracy on the Government's proposals. The net result of the commission's proposals bear out what was put in that submission of 8 February last in relation to the changes made. The way in which communities were divided from their natural hinterlands indicates the truth of our submission.

I was referring to democracy and alienation before I was interrupted by the Leas-Cheann Comhairle.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Not interrupted, Deputy, advised.

Tomás Mac Giolla

——before I was advised by interruption that I was out of order. In the Dublin area major structural reforms were required but they were not required in the downwards stream. In other words, in each county council area urban centres are needed — an urban council, town commissioners or a borough council operating within that council and under that county manager. That system should operate in the major urban areas and in Dublin.

The Minister's six areas in the city were suitable areas for borough councils. The Minister for the Environment made great plans some years ago for the new towns or cities outside of Dublin — Tallaght, Clondalkin, Lucan and Blanchardstown with a population of roughly 100,000 in each town. If these towns are to be separate from Dublin it would be appropriate for the Minister to take this opportunity to firm that up and give those towns borough status and not town commissioner status. In that way they could be considered real new towns with their own identity and local government system. The Government would have some hope of making their plans stick by doing that and by bringing local democracy to these areas. Large towns which are still growing rapidly need local democracy; they need a centre to cater for their growing communities. There are community councils, residents' associations, sports clubs and so on and they need a centre from which to work. The Minister had a great opportunity of doing that in the Bill. If he did it for Tallaght, Blanchardstown, Clondalkin and Lucan areas he could have done it also for areas such as Crumlin, Drimnagh, or Coolock. He could have established borough councils in those areas. In doing so he would have brought local government to the people. They would have had a greater say in what was happening in their community. The Minister has lost an opportunity under these structures to bring more local democracy, the thing that is needed in order to avoid the alienation we hear so much about, to the people.

Has the Minister taken into account in preparing his structures the report of the Eastern Regional Development Organisation — I do not think it has been published but it is available in draft form — on the settlement strategy to 2011? According to that study extraordinary changes in population will take place in that period. We are talking about what has taken place in Tallaght, Lucan, Clondalkin and Blanchardstown, areas with a population of approximately 100,000 each. According to the study I referred to, it is expected that Tallaght in 25 years time will have a population of 95,000 and the Clondalkin-Lucan area, 105,000. Blanchardstown is expected to be the biggest area of all with a population of 105,000. One area that has not been referred to in plans and is continuing to grow is Swords. It is expected that in 25 years time that area will have a population of 100,000. It is expected that there will be a population of 56,000 in Donabate; 20,000 in Skerries; 21,000 in Balbriggan, and the area of Leixlip-Celbridge-Maynooth will have a population of 67,000. That extraordinary growth is taking place but local government structures are not fitting in with it.

The study I have referred to deals with the needs of those growing areas in regard to education, roads, transport and so on. It sets out what is needed for that development but what are we doing about giving an identity to Swords? What is the Minister doing about Donabate where there will be a population of 56,000 in 25 years? That area will have a greater population than Drogheda, Dundalk or any of the major towns. The Minister has not availed of the opportunity to provide for those changes. Those areas are starved of investment and development.

The Minister had an opportunity of dealing with the projections in that settlement study. A lot of work was put into it. Officials of the Department of the Environment and local authorities in counties Wicklow, Kildare, Dublin and Meath were involved in the preparation of the report. CIE, the education authorities and others will be taking account of it but the Minister for the Environment who must be aware of the projections has not taken them into account in the Bill before us. The Minister took the easy option and told us that everything was fine in county and urban areas. In spite of the increase in population that has taken place and the projections for the next 15 to 20 years there has not been any effort to raise town commissioners to the status of urban councils, urban councils to borough councils or establish new town commissioners. The Minister has failed to indicate where the need is to increase local government structures. Why bother to reorganise local government? What has the Minister reorganised? Are we not dealing with another electoral area boundary system? Is that what the Bill is all about? If we thought that at the outset we would not have expected anything more but everybody was looking for something different and they did not get it.

The Minister in preparing proposals on local government reform should take into account the developments that are taking place and endeavour to bring an element of local democracy into them. The debate is being held on a restricted area. How can we discuss the matter fully when we do not know whether the Minister will be taking powers from the local authorities or giving them more powers? It is clear that in regard to Dublin the Minister will be taking power from the local authorities and giving them to the proposed municipal authority. The Minister has not given us any indication of the powers the proposed municipal authority will have. One thing that is clear is that the members will not be elected by the people of the city. The people of Dublin will not have any say in the election or appointment of the members to that municipal council. Members will be appointed from each of the other councils in the area. As far as those councils are concerned the Minister has not done anything to end the problem that has been going on for more than a decade between the city and the county — the problem of all the development being outside the city and the county having different procedures, attitudes and standards from the city. Instead of the arguments being between the city and one county council in future they will be between the city and two county councils. Of course Dún Laoghaire Borough Council will also be involved. In some cases there is bitterness involved. I have known some county councillors to be bitter about members of Dublin Corporation and that will continue.

Will the proposed municipal council have, as I believe, three major areas of power? Will all housing construction be in the hands of the municipal council? Will they have powers over planning for the county and city? Will the major roads and transportation be in the hands of the proposed municipal council? If that is the case major powers in regard to housing, planning and roads will be taken from existing authorities. As the Leas-Cheann Comhairle said, we cannot talk about powers because they are not in this Bill. If we are talking about a municipal council, is that a place where they will all sit down and say "How are you doing?" and "We will get an extra £15 for this, and how long shall we stay? Should we go away now or stay longer?" Will they be dealing with something?

The people must know these things before we can discuss seriously a municipal council in Dublin with no powers. What are they to do? Are they to have powers over the city council? Can they veto decisions of the city council or of county councils in certain areas? Are they connected in some way with the Dublin Transport Authority? Are they to be linked in? Will it be all the one or two separate things? Will a transportation authority deal with roads and transport and a municipal council with housing and planning, with a number of councils under them dealing with nothing except allocations, maintenance, keeping the lights going and the usual hassle? Is that what is in mind?

I believe what is in mind is that the major powers are to be taken from the four councils in Dublin and that councillors elected to those councils will have fewer powers after this Bill is passed than they have now. Although the Minister is supposed to be bringing in a separate Bill regarding powers, probably next autumn, he should tell us while this Bill is under discussion what he has in mind regarding this municipal council and what powers that new instrument or institution or whatever you like to call them will have and how they will operate. Will they have vetoes? Are powers being taken away from other councils? The Minister has a statutory duty to tell us all of that if we are to agree to establish such a thing. It is most unfair to put before us one small structure or reorganisation Bill and tell us then that we will go into an election on that without an idea of what powers they will have, how they will operate financially etc. That is this Bill's greatest drawback.

I have already pointed out that the manner in which the boundaries have been put before the commission and eventually drawn up was not a democratic procedure. It and the whole Bill probably are a major electoral redrawing of boundaries in an endeavour to stem the tide of opposition to this Government, but the very production of this Bill will increase that opposition in local communities as they see that, far from reducing the alienation of young people from local government, this Bill will increase it.

Minister for the Environment (Mr. Kavanagh)

First of all, I thank all the Deputies who have contributed to this debate on this very important issue of local government reorganisation. Deputy Molloy has pledged his party's co-operation in getting the Bill enacted before Easter so that arrangements can be made for the June election in good time. Presumably that pledge also means that the Opposition are in basic agreement with the terms of the Bill, and I welcome that endorsement of the Government's proposals.

Mr. Molloy

That does not follow.

Mr. Kavanagh

However, I cannot but draw the attention of the House to the sheer poverty of the Opposition's contribution to this debate. They appear to have no interest in local government reform. They appear to have no positive suggestions to offer in spite of all the White Papers, discussion documents and so on. Instead of a positive contribution to the debate Deputy Molloy took refuge mainly in criticism of the County and County Borough Electoral Area Boundaries Commission. He did not stop short of implying that the commission were somehow constrained on this subject due to undue influences. He had no evidence whatever to support this deplorable innuendo that I or people in either party in Government had influence on this commission, but this did not stop him from making it. I cannot accept that suggestion which he made and which Deputy Lyons referred to when suggesting that certain changes in the Cork area would suit a member or members of my party. I assure this House and the public in general that no influence was brought to bear on either of the commissions. I gave the six people in the commission every encouragement to say whether they believed that any influence from any direction was brought to bear on them and to bring it to the notice of the public. I have every confidence that this was not the case because they did not do so.

These commissions were set up under two High Court judges with a county manager and an assistant county manager and two of the highest officials in my Department whose positions are well known to the Opposition party who were in Government for a very long time. Those two officials of my Department must be highly respected because of their knowledge of the election system and process. I understand the managers were selected on a basis that would reflect both the Dublin and the rural situation and again were of the highest calibre. If the two judges were to be impugned in some way as bending to influence I would be very sorry. I deplore that innuendo and I hope that the Deputies who made that statement will take the opportunity before we finish Second Stage to withdraw that kind of implication against the boundary commissions that were set up. If on the one hand one accepts that this is an important Bill which must be processed in a certain time and that there should be no influence by me or officials of my Department doing my bidding or that of the Government, then why not accept that that was the position? The changes made by the commission, who have been criticised for certain of those changes, were made by people who accepted the situation as they found it and had made approaches and opened their minds to submissions from every direction. Time was available to have those submissions made and, therefore, to look at them, and they were considered. This was the only avenue of influence on the minds of the commission, that which they accepted and looked for over the period in which they did their work. All parties in this House made representations. Individual constituency parties made representations, as did individuals and so on, and these were all considered and enough time was made available to have this consideration by the commission. To say that as a result of that boundaries were decided on and drawn up to suit any party is totally unfair and a great slight on people who made up those commissions and did such valuable work and to whom I, on behalf of the House and everyone who will take part in the local elections in June, am greatly indebted for the efficient way in which they operated. The Government accepted their recommendations without any change to prove that they could not have the taint of influence by any political party, particularly not by the Government parties. The submissions were accepted en bloc. They were published as they were presented to me.

The commission were given terms of reference and were asked to complete their work within a specified time. They did that and what has been published is the work of the commission. I hope that dispels the notion from the minds of those who may have been influenced by the words of Deputy Molloy and others that there could have been any influence brought to bear on them in any way.

In his contribution Deputy Molloy said the Bill could not be considered as implementing major reforms into the local government system. These views fail to convince. A White Paper on local government reform was published by Fianna Fáil in 1971, the Government in which Deputy Molloy was Minister for Local Government. The White Paper proposed the establishment of a single metropolitan authority for the entire Dublin area and the widespread abolition of small urban authorities around the country. He may not like to be reminded of this but it is fair and reasonable, having listened to him, that I should remind him of the proposals he made. Neither those proposals, which could be unacceptable to many people, nor any subsequent proposals made by the Fianna Fáil Government were implemented over that period. That speaks for itself as regards the interest of the party opposite in local government reform or reorganisation. I indicated in my speech on Second Stage that any further delay in tackling local government reform would be indefensible. The Government have prepared a reform programme and this Bill represents the first of six initiatives which will have to be brought before the House before the full package of reform becomes one main package.

Mr. Haughey

May I interrupt?

Mr. Kavanagh

Yes.

Mr. Haughey

Look at the time.

An Ceann Comhairle

I ask the Minister for the Environment to move the adjournment of the debate and suggest we wait for a moment for the Minister for Health.

Mr. Molloy

They are all missing today. There must be something stirring some place.

Mr. Haughey

He is probably closing another hospital somewhere.

Mr. Kavanagh

There is a Government meeting every Thursday and the Opposition know that as well as I do.

Mr. Molloy

There seems to be a bit of a panic.

Debate adjourned.

Proinsias De Rossa

I wish to avail of this time to seek to raise on the Adjournment the question of the deteriorating situation in southern Lebanon and the dangers which Irish troops are facing there.

An Ceann Comhairle

I will communicate with the Deputy.

Mr. Molloy

The troops are well able to handle themselves.