Annie Hoey (Labour) | Oireachtas source

Ahead of these statements, I canvassed Labour Party members, both councillors and local area representatives, to get their feedback. I also spoke to a few people who are not members of the Labour Party, which should put the spooks up some of the other parties in that we canvassed far and wide to get an idea of what people are experiencing. I would need an hour to go through all of the issues that were raised with me on behalf of those councillors and local area representatives but I will try to go through some of them.

A big issue that came up, and which has been mentioned in the House, is that of the directly elected mayor. An interesting point that a number of people made to me is that we tend to ask people when we want to expand the powers of local government. However, in the past 15, 20 or 30 years, when we have been decentralising and disempowering local government, we have not really asked anyone about it and it just kind of happened. There was certainly a frustration around that and around when we will see see the directly elected mayor situation moving forward.

A strong point made to me by the Labour Party councillors was around the local development and planning legislation. I am under strict instructions to express in the strongest sense the concerns that that is going to once again disempower local government, particularly the elements that seek to circumscribe the power of local government vis-à-visplanning. At a time when we ask people whether we can increase the powers of local government in regard to directly elected mayors, we are not asking whether we can decrease the powers. There is certainly a sense that that legislation is going to further disempower councillors who are elected by the people to represent them, and who have a really important role in planning in particular. I might take a moment to focus on the councillors before talking about some of the areas people are concerned about. I talk about this centralisation and making the powers local government has, particularly in the areas of public transport, education and health, slightly smaller. At the Dublin Citizens' Assembly, it came out that Irish local government is the least powerful in Europe outside of Moldova. That is something we should be concerned about. We should want to have empowered and strong local government and not just see our local councillors as feet on the ground to canvass on behalf of Deputies and Senators. They should be empowered to make decisions.

While we are disempowering them, I am sure every single party here and the Minister of State will have heard about the ever-increasing workload. There is a part-time salary for a full-time job. I can speak internally from speaking to councillors. We are always looking to diversify our local government representation, which is really important for politics. I refer particularly to women and diverse candidates. When we tell them about the workload and the lack of support, it is hard to encourage people into the job. We tell them it will be a part-time salary but bejaysus it is going to be a full-time job and that there is not a great amount of support for councillors. That is a problem with regard to who we are getting into local government and the work they are able to do.

If I may move to the council structures, I was not aware of this but someone has told me that, if you come from outside the public service - I am talking about recruiting staff into local government - and are starting work in the local authority, you have to start at the first point of the pay grade whereas, if you come from the public service, there is a different system. I am talking about diversifying our elected representatives but also enticing good quality staff into our local authorities. If they are starting on a different pay grade, that is a problem in and of itself.

Someone mentioned the county development plans and how they operate. It was raised with me that there is no independent legal advice given to councillors in that regard. There is no access to reports and personnel from Irish Water, EirGrid or the EPA to allow councillors to make informed decisions. Councillors often have to rely on whoever they happen to know in those areas.

My last point on transparency and access is that there should be a directive or firm support from Government for council meetings to be digitally recorded and made publicly available to improve the transparency of local government and to make it more publicly accessible. I will end there although I have 50 million other points.