Tim Lombard (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I believe there should be a debate on local government and where we are going with this issue. Nine and a half years ago, we had really significant reforms and we moved away from the town council model. I spent most of yesterday meeting constituents in west Cork. Those reforms had a huge impact on west Cork because either town councils or UDCs were in Kinsale, Bandon, Clonakilty, Skibbereen or Bantry. We had a network of town councils and UDCs and it was a mistake to move away from this model. The other model had the town clerk as part of it.Now, we have gone to the system where we have extremely large districts. An example is the Dunmanway-Clonakilty-Skibbereen district, which is nearly the size of County Louth. There is one district officer in charge of it. Let us be honest and admit that we are not going to have a major change in policy between now and the local elections. However, there should be a significant debate over the next five years about where we are going to go in the context of local government.

I fundamentally believe the changes made were wrong. I do not think this alteration has benefited society or the people on the ground regarding what is going to happen in future. I believe we should start this debate now, and it should be a significant one about trying to ensure the network of town councils in these areas is restored. The knock-on impact of this is that it would be better for local democracy. I fundamentally also believe local democracy is not being served well now. I refer to local democracy in these towns which are so far away from the county hall. Bantry is 90 km plus away from Cork County Council's County Hall headquarters. It is very hard for the people in Bantry to feel those in County Hall understand what is happening in the town. We need to move to a more locally-based model. Big government, in this regard, does not work. We need to move away from what has happened and learn from the mistakes.