I move:
That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to allow for the creation of a Local Government Commission to carry out a review and make recommendations relating to the establishment and boundaries of a town council system and to provide for related matters.
The Bill has as its aim the restoration of town councils which served citizens so well for over a century. The Bill, as introduced, aims to set up a specially designated commission to review the establishment and boundaries of a demographically proportional town council system. At the outset, it is important to set out the motivation for a restoration of town councils because many would ask why we would bother with bringing back this level of government. It is simply because so many other ordinary people have been asking about the neglect and lack of focus for our town centres across Ireland since the town councils were done away with and with them the special budgets for town cores which were vaporised into thin air.
A democratic system that represents people living in our towns is needed now more than ever because we are moving towards an ever more urbanised Ireland. Debates in this Chamber concerning rural Ireland are frequent and rightly so but there have been very few about urban Ireland. When one takes account of the new national framework plan, which will see higher densities and increased urbanisation, the requirement to have people representing these large towns is all the more pressing and critical.
At the time of the dissolution of more than 80 town councils in 2014 the then Minister, Mr. Phil Hogan, hailed it as reform, but nothing could be further from the truth. Of course, nobody would mourn the loss of 700 politicians from the political field, but suddenly people living in these towns found that they also lost much more than just councillors as they were part of a much larger geographical electoral area under the reformed system.
A host of different things went with those councillors. The dedicated budgets for their towns, in many cases over €10 million per annum, are gone. Their statutory powers in respect of their own town centres are gone. The power to set their own rates for their town is gone. This year small businesses across the country are seeing their rates increased above and beyond normal rates because of equalisation. The special focus on the urban space is gone. In the three years since the abolition of town councils people have now realised what a crucial role these bodies actually played in developing life in these urban spaces.
I unashamedly have a huge passion for the local government system in this country having spent 17 years in it serving at both town and county level, many of those years alongside the Government Chief Whip during her time on Meath County Council. I understand the value of having a strong town council structure that can look after the many urban areas in our country, and the unique challenges and requirements for people living in our towns.
During my time on both councils I can recall when our county council was mired in debt but our town council was actually running a surplus. This meant we were able to raise our own finance to develop a new arts centre, parks and enhanced urban spaces. We did not have to go to elected members from other areas to sanction finance for what was needed in our own town for our own people.
The rest of Europe embraces the local government structure. In the United Kingdom efforts are under way to try to reinvigorate this very local layer of government. However, in this country instead of embracing it we squeeze the life out of it and then mock its corpse by calling it reform as we continue the drive towards centralisation. Despite the constitutional guarantees that buttress local authorities in Ireland it remains susceptible to the legislative reforms from central government. The perceived control that central government has over the local level was the focus of a report from the Council of Europe in 2013 which highlighted the need for greater protection for the subsidiarity principle in government. In addition to the structural changes implemented in the Local Government Reform Act, it also did very little to reverse the overarching power that central government has over the policy framework for local government.
As I outlined earlier, the Bill as introduced aims to set up a specially designated commission to review the establishment and boundaries of a demographically proportional town council system. The commission will also be tasked with setting out the proposed functions, responsibilities and rating powers of a town council and their composition and size. The commission will be required to report to the Minister within six months of its establishment.
The Bill is designed to set up a new town council system on a fair and equitable basis across Ireland in time for the 2019 local elections. It will help to empower communities in our towns to take control of their local areas. It will ensure the new structure recognises the major population shift in Ireland and put forward a new range of powers for a tier of governance closest to our citizens. This measure will help give power back to local communities at a time when more and more people feel alienated and removed from the decision-making process that affects them.
