Shane Cassells (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome my Meath colleague Councillor Francis Deane to the Public Gallery. I served with him on both Navan town and county councils. I welcome also his wife, Fiona, and sister-in-law, Martina. It is great to see former councillor Sean O'Grady with us. I was part of a European initiative against drugs 22 years ago and there I first met Sean. I was mayor of Navan and slightly younger than I am now. Sean and his wife, Kitty, who joins him today, were there representing Kerry. We also both met the Queen of Sweden on that occasion, if I recall. Sean got closer in the seating pecking order than I did.

This afternoon session has been really informative and we have touched on a wide range of issues. It is interesting and right that Fórsa has been here to make the case for those who work within the sector as employees, the service they provide to the public and the duty of care they have. I always welcome the engagement of Fórsa with the public representatives. In the previous term I was local government spokesperson for Fianna Fáil and Fórsa held a pre-local election debate about the party's position on numerous points. The analysis the union representatives are talking about is something I, the Cathaoirleach and the Oireachtas research team are doing a body of work on to look at the legislative changes to local government over the past 30-odd years and the powers that have been ceded as a result.

That is going to form part of this report in terms of presenting that to the people collectively. It does not necessarily mean we would support the reinstatement of every aspect of that. Indeed, I said at that debate that I would not support the reinstatement of waste services to the local authorities, but the point is to try to present it as a whole and have a proper debate about it, and that will be important.

PPNs’ involvement as part of civil society is so important, and we have to make sure they are not seen as an adversary but are respected within the conversations and the processes that need to happen.

Councillor Murphy is very welcome. I was a youth delegate to the Committee of the Regions on the Treaty of Rome many years ago, and I have seen the importance of its work.

The point Councillor McEvoy made was very interesting. In previous sessions, we have discussed where we would have the importance of regional assemblies as part of this process, and that is going to be really important in the context of whether, as a society, we take them seriously, and there is also the set of devolved statutory powers. We see in the context of European elections that there are huge swathes of constituencies where there is buy-in from the public for these massive constituencies, but given our country's small nature, they are important. I really welcome Councillor McEvoy’s contribution and it will form part of our discussions.

Conversely, we have had an extensive discussion on the impact of the abolition of town councils. I was a town councillor for three terms, concurrent with being a county councillor. As so many speakers have said, including Mr. Lacey, Councillor Murphy, Mr. O’Grady and Councillor Flynn in the context of Westport, we had statutory powers. In the town of Navan, where Councillor Deane and I served, we had a budget of €12 million or €13 million just for the town, with our own planners, engineers and housing department. There was a special focus on the town. As Councillor Flynn said in his opening remarks, everyone knew our town clerk when he walked up the street. There was engagement between the public and the officials, which has, sadly, gone since the abolition of the town councils. People knew who the officials were on a local authority, which is very important given the nature of our system, and that has been a retrograde step. I am not sure whether we will ever get them back but there has to be a scenario where, at the very least, the MD system will have to have more statutory powers.

The contribution made by Councillor Deane, whom I know personally and whom I praise for his contribution and his analysis, demonstrated that, for both Denmark and France, there is a knock-on impact in terms of declining engagement by the public with the process, and that is reflected in lower turnouts. That is a very dangerous slope on which we find ourselves.

I thank our local authority members and my colleagues councillors Keogh, Fitzgerald and Flynn for the work they do and for having outlined the frustrations they have as part of that work. The job of national government should be to make local government work more efficiently for those on the ground and the people we serve. I thank everyone for their contributions.