Denis Landy (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome delegates from the Association of Municipal Authorities in Ireland, particularly the President, Mr. Callaghan and some of the executive members who are in attendance. Most people in this room will know that the AMAI is my nominating body for the Seanad. I am delighted to say that I was successful in winning a seat on behalf of the association and have worked very closely with it since becoming a Senator.

We have reached the point where the legislation has been published and my personal views on it are on the record of the Seanad. I believe that town councils should be retained but the Minister and the Cabinet have made their decision on that. We now have a Bill in front of us and that is what we are debating. We must move forward with that Bill. The AMAI has come here today with a very positive presentation on how it sees the reform of local government playing out.

How does Mr. Callaghan see this legislation affecting local communities? At the outset of this process, the Minister sought lists of powers that could be devolved from each individual Department but to the best of my knowledge, only one Department responded to his request regarding the devolution of powers to local government. What powers do the delegates think we can still seek to have devolved to local government? The issue of local government autonomy vis-à-vis rates and the local property tax at municipal district council level was raised. I ask the delegates to expand further on that issue.

I will not go through the individual amendments now because we are pressed for time but wish to only deal with them in a broad sense. In amendment No. 2 it is requested that municipal district councils be permitted to vary the commercial rates but we already have a system in the country called the business improvement district scheme, which does something similar. The Government should be open to considering this amendment because we already have practice and precedent in this regard. The request from the association for powers to vary rates is a reasonable one and the AMAI has asked that we amend section 29 of the Bill to do this. The proposals on rates rebates will have an enormous impact in rural Ireland. In fact, I would go so far as to say that if that is introduced, the State will never see a lot of that money. Effectively, the State is telling people who have vacant buildings that they will have to pay full rates on those buildings and will not get anything back. Generally speaking, in small towns in rural Ireland, people who have closed up their businesses have no money so they will not be able to pay the rates anyway. A more practical approach to this issue would be very welcome.

The issue of calling municipal districts 'councils' was referred to earlier and it stands to reason that this should be the case. There should be no full stop after municipal districts and the word council should be added at the end. I strongly support that suggestion. The case for mayors has been well made by Councillor Mc Carthy. Many people refer to the situation in Europe and the fact that we must be seen to row in with our European neighbours. Municipalities and mayoralties go hand in hand and I support the delegates in that regard.

My final point concerns the recognition of elected members on the Local Enterprise Offices, LEOs and the Corporate Policy Groups, CPGs. We must have autonomy and I support Deputy Stanley's arguments in that regard. Autonomy does not mean that powers are devolved to the officials of councils but to the elected representatives. That is what we want to see.