Councillor Patricia McCarthy:

The next proposed amendment would on line 40 of page 51 insert "or municipal district". We are seeking that each municipal district be allowed to choose its own titles such as "cathaoirleach" or "mayor", and that there should be no distinction between local authorities. A town with a population of 20,000 should not have a status above another town with a population of 15,000 or 10,000. Heretofore in local government there have been different tiers of authority, responsibility and recognition, going from town commissioners to the large cities. This reform seeks to equalise, except in the case of cities or towns with charters. That would be a unique distinction and in every other area we are supposed to be equal. There is a form of discrimination in the Bill, as it gives status to some towns above others, which is unfair. The title of "mayor" is a municipal title. Whatever title a district decides to use, there should be equality that is unrelated to the size of a town. There may be three large towns in the area.

That is the reason for the amendment.

On section 40 the proposed amendment is: "In page 53, line 20, after "matters" insert ", and the chairperson of such committee will be a member of the relevant Local Enterprise Office"." We were amazed to find out that there is no public representative on the community development committees, so the local enterprise offices, LEOs, will not have public representatives. That is a serious oversight for a body that will be responsible for signing off on the various commitments of LEOs. At the very least the chairperson of the strategic policy committee that deals with enterprise and development should be a member. An amendment is required sooner rather than later. We would like the committee’s support in that regard.

On the amendment to section 44, which states "In page 57, to delete lines 9 to 20", we do not necessarily want to delete the entire section. The Bill proposes to give a right to registered political parties for their whip to be on the corporate policy group, CPG, if he or she is not nominated by the political grouping to the CPG. They will have an automatic 20% representation on the CPG. That is immediately discriminatory in that if one has a group of independents which has come together to form a grouping on a local authority the members are automatically discriminated against because they are not a registered political party, although they might be part of the largest political grouping in the council. Therefore, they will not have an automatic 20% representation on the CPG if their whip is not a member of the CPG.

The idea of the CPG, as I understand it - that has not changed in the Bill since its inception - is that it is a mini-cabinet, the role of which is to guide and work with management to progress the plans for the council. It was intended to be a small focus group that would meet on a regular basis. The measure has the potential to be extremely unwieldy because we all know what can happen. People can be nominated and then others could be added on. We do not think the door should be opened, as it were, as broadly as is the case. Therefore, we seek to have the provision amended in addition to the removal of the clear discrimination against independents and non-aligned people. Some councils have groups of non-aligned members and the provision confers an unfair advantage on registered parties.

The proposed amendment to section 53 is: "In page 73, after line 34, to insert “(e) A county council or a city and county council is required to ensure that income redistributed to a municipal district will be on a fair and equitable basis, and reasonably proportional to the income directly generated within that municipal district." It is important to recognise that where moneys are raised in a district it may be the principal source of income for the entire county, but because there is a lot of business in the area there is also an onus on it to have certain standards and to deliver certain services that may not be demanded to the same extent in other areas. There must be a recognition in the redistribution of local funds of the balance that is needed to develop a county and an area.