Joe McHugh (Donegal North East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Community groups are doing good work.

Can we look at leadership within local authorities? I refer to the likes of Peter Hynes in the Taoiseach's county and Seamus Neely in my county who are all doing good work in their own right. Can we have greater participation among local authority leadership North and South? I would like to name one person because the mechanism is in place in Northern Ireland. Derek McCallan is the chief executive officer of Northern Ireland Local Government Association. We, in the South, need to reach out, whether at the level of the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport or the Department of Health, and look for leaders in the local authority sector.

Can we embrace the Good Friday Agreement which was democratically supported by people in every county in the Twenty-Six Counties and in the Six Counties 15 years later? Can we create some sort of political partnership panel, involving local authority leadership at a civic level?

Democracy at local level is the closest reach people have to democracy. We should consider the adoption of a strategic approach, not just to Border issues but also to North-South integration. Aspects of North-South integration in areas like transport, health and education are at the kernel of the Good Friday Agreement. The Minister, Deputy Quinn, has said he wants to co-operate. There is no participatory democratic way of doing that at local authority level. I would like the Taoiseach to reach out to our counterparts in Northern Ireland in that regard.

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