On this section I desire to raise a question as to the wisdom of making the Minister the judge of whether the rate struck for poor rate is adequate or not. Local bodies are elected with all due ceremony, and a considerable interest is taken in their election. You make these bodies practically autonomous in local affairs, and yet you immediately strike at the root at that principle of democracy by giving the Minister power to say whether these bodies are striking adequate rates or not. If, in the opinion of the Minister, they are striking an inadequate rate you give him the power of imposing what amounts to financial penalties. As this is a provision that only applies over one year I am only making this protest in a formal way. However, I desire to make a general protest against this failure to trust local bodies. You will never educate or inculcate amongst them a sense of their responsibilities unless you trust them. My view of the matter is that you should trust them and give them plenty of rope, and then if they do not discharge their duties properly dissolve them. I suggest, however, that this diarchy principle will never bring home to councillors a due sense of their responsibilities.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT (RATES ON AGRICULTURAL LAND) BILL, 1925—SECOND STAGE.
This section was inserted to meet the need that had arisen through a lack of appreciation of their responsibilities by members of local authorities. It will not do the Oireachtas much good to know that a local authority at the end of a financial year has a huge overdraft, and that it has got to pile on a new set of ratepayers liabilities for which some of those ratepayers at any rate were not responsible. Anyone who has even an elementary knowledge of the finances of municipalities and local authorities throughout the country knows perfectly well that the ratepayer has only a life of twelve months. That may seem a rather ridiculous statement to make, but it is a fact. Out of £40,000 or £50,000 or even £100,000 worth of ratings some will not be there next year. The fundamental principle of local administration is to make each ratepayer in a particular year responsible for the outgoings incurred in connection with the administration of a local authority over that particular year. Senator Sir John Keane's recommendation is one which would postpone the liability and remove from the backs of the ratepayers of to-day burdens which would have to be borne by other ratepayers in the future.
This is a case in which the Government has taken the only step that was open to it to take. It is the only sound and sensible step that it could take, and it is all moonshine to talk about democracy and about the failure to trust democracy. This is not a failure to trust democracy, but it is a failure on the part of certain people who have got certain democratic rights and who do not exercise them in accordance with justice and equity. In a case like that, the central authority is taking proper steps to see that, as far as the public are concerned and as far as the ratepayers of a particular district are concerned, the charges to be met in a particular year are borne by the ratepayers in that particular year, and that a sufficient rate must be struck to meet all the outgoings of the local authority in that year. If Senator Sir John Keane examined a little more carefully the historical aspects of this case he would know that he had made a very foolish statement. What are the facts? The county councils which have just gone out of existence struck the rates for this year. Senator Sir John Keane asks how is it that we do not trust these bodies. We have trusted them, but the bodies that were recently elected had not the striking of the rates for this year. Some of these bodies have gone out of existence, as Senator Sir John Keane knows, leaving the people to assume that the lower rate they struck will discharge the liabilities that are to be met. But in many instances that is not the case. It is about time that a stop should be put to this rake's progress, and that everyone should know that there is only one way of doing business and that is to do it in a straight and honest way.