Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

People will consider Deputy Bannon to be some kind of a fool if he does that, and he is not. He is a bright and intelligent man. His community is bright and intelligent and it will respect him if he supports our effort to reject a proposal that goes too far.

The alignment process is all fine on paper but the fact is that the Minister will lose the voluntary input. The Minister should point out to me where else local authorities are involved in community activity where they have all that voluntary support. He knows it does not happen. It will not happen and it will be eroded here.

The Minister need only look to his own councillors, and councillors across the country. In the county I know best, the Fine Gael, Labour, Independent and Fianna Fáil councillors who were there at the time all rejected out of hand these proposals and they voted against them in their own chamber. That sends a strong message. It is unusual for politicians to state that they do not want the power. Quite the contrary, if they thought that they could do it better, they would have grabbed it and they would have got involved in it. However, they see that it would remove the voluntary effort and it would ultimately lead to a reduction in the service and an erosion of the good work that is being done.

Councillors and those involved in the communities believe that, ultimately, the Leader funding will find its way into the general Local Government Fund and Leader funding will be used for services that are already being provided. It is difficult to convince them otherwise. They paid a property tax this year.

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