Pat Casey (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank everyone for coming here this morning and giving their views. I will start with a question for Mr. de Róiste about local democracy. He focused on diversity and inclusion, and mentioned that great Irish quote, céad míle fáilte. Are we realistically living up to that today? The challenge for every county is diversity and inclusion in our society.

I look forward to seeing a copy of the proposal the witnesses are making, because maybe it is something that could be rolled our in each local authority as we are challenged with that.

Turning to Councillor Dowling, as I think Senator Wall mentioned, it is amazing when you sit here through all the consultation on the hybrid meetings and see the pros of it, but there was strong representation here at the previous meeting saying it is not working. There is a balance somewhere that needs to be achieved. It is fulfilling a role for people in the councillor's position, but maybe there are other occasions where it is just being abused because people do not want to tune in and be part of the process, which is disappointing as well. Councillor Dowling mentioned the county development plan meetings and the length of them. I have been through a good few of them, so I can fully understand it is not very practical. I was at one that went on until 3 a.m. You question the decisions you are making after a meeting that started at 10 a.m. and is still going on at 3 a.m.

Councillor Henchy mentioned a theme that has become very strong here when we are talking about the role of the councillor into the future, namely, that it is now a full-time role. That is acknowledged here. He also mentioned having the support. When discussing an earlier topic, Senator Boyhan raised having independent advice available to local authorities, be it on planning, financial or legal matters. That is something we need to focus on.

Councillor Edge mentioned a few things close to my interests, especially the county development plan and how councillors are now almost being completely directed from a national level. It is now a top-down rather than a bottom-up approach and councillors just have to accept that and adopt that. Then we have the Office of the Planning Regulator ensuring every amendment councillors make conforms to the national policy. On rural planning, coming from Glendalough, I live with lots of problems when it comes to rural planning, but I wonder whether the interpretation of the national policy is in question here and how planners are interpreting that because the policy clearly refers to social or economic need. However, that just seems to be ignored at council level and it is something we need to focus on. The guidelines have not changed since 2005. Maybe we would be better off not changing them from the indications I have seem about what is coming down the line. We might be better off sticking with what we have.