Mr. Des Dowling:

The Minister would be quick to say that his reform programme is completely different from anything that has been done previously. We hope we learned from the past and previous work that has been undertaken but the practical position is that there has not been a reform programme on a scale which has sought to tackle the range of issues. The Deputy is right in that there have been difficulties in regard to the interplay between town and county structures and the reform programme is intended to resolve this for once and for all. The Chairman asked about this point in terms of the municipal districts. It is important before I deal with the Deputy's second question to spend a little time on this point, if that is appropriate at this stage. It is crucial to the overall reform process that we would all have a shared understanding of what is intended as part of the municipal districts proposal.

In terms of the facts, I will outline the principal features of the model. It is important to do this because it will resolve the question that this is not some kind of a continuum of an approach in regard to towns when it is quite the opposite. Our sub-county structures are intended to resolve a series of issues which have bedevilled local government as it has operated between the county and town. There will be a comprehensive territorial configuration of each county into municipal districts. We do not have that in place at present because some places have towns and often towns have formed there for simply historical reasons. As I said in my statement, and Deputies will know this, many substantial towns do not have a similar structure in this respect and therefore there is an issue of coverage.

Second, members in the first instance will be elected to the municipal districts. I understand the Minister said in the Dáil earlier today that this is not a question of the abolition of structures but of generating new structures that integrate municipal representation which at present is currently undertaken through towns. l believe the Minister would also emphasise his recognition and acknowledgment of the very strong connectivity at local level in towns between elected members and their constituents. The approach here seeks to build on that very strong relationship.

Third, there will not be a separate or parallel set of local authority members at the two levels. This is critical in terms of resolving this issue as between the different levels of government. Therefore, there will not be rivalry, competition or any inconsistency between what can happen within counties at the sub-county and county level. Furthermore, there will be a single countywide executive or operational structure and no duplicate administrative or organisational overhead to eliminate the need for duplication of structures because in a sense there will be a single administrative structure which supports the representation of the municipal district level and the county level.

The organisation format of local government will involve a single corporate entity incorporating the two elements of jurisdiction for the elected members, namely, the countywide level and the district level. In a sense we will not have duplication of organisational structures, instead we will have different forms of representation which will come together to resolve these various issues.

This bring me to the question of functions. The key emphasis here is on subsidiarity to ensure that matters which should be dealt with locally at the level of the citizen at municipal level are dealt with at the level. We gave some examples in the statement and there are further examples in the action programme such as the local area plans, the housing services plans and so on. On the other hand, and in response to a point the Deputy raised, we know there have been particular difficulties in trying to secure a coherent approach to planning where there can often be competing development plans. We know equally that in terms of the engagement of businesses with local government there can often be competing issues between the rating decisions taken by individual towns and the rating decisions taken by wider country. This approach seeks to resolve these issues which have stood in the way of previous reform efforts. We do not underestimate the challenge involved in putting these arrangements in place but there will be significant legislation to do it, as I said in the statement. It will have to be done well in advance of the local elections to give people time to prepare for that but there will also be time in terms of the preparation of the legislation when we can hear people's further views as to the way in which powers between the sub-county, the municipal district level and county level ought to be developed.

As regards the overall numbers, and my colleagues may wish to supplement what I have said on these matters, the committee will recognise that there is huge unevenness in the ratio of representation throughout the country. The restructuring will seek to ensure there will be greater evenness across that to secure an appropriate level of representation. The Minister said in the Dáil earlier today that the primary objective here is not to achieve financial savings but that given the economic position would we not be very inconsistent if we did not bring forward proposals which had a major benefit in terms of the public finances. If we take the three central issues at present as being the need to create and sustain jobs, protect competitiveness and address the public finances, this overall programme, the Minister suggests, addresses all three through building new structures, modernising our approaches to efficiency and, hopefully, in time building greater confidence in our local government system. We can draw enough inspiration from experiences abroad to show that we are on the right track in terms of the municipal approach trying to reconcile the different levels of government as between regional, county and municipal, and the doing of that will also hopefully bring about reductions and make the contributions local government has done during the past few years in terms of the public finances. Mr. Conlan may wish to make some further comments on the municipal districts approach.