Caít Keane (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

On the issue of municipal districts, Dublin is the classic example of a place where there was no town council but where there will now be municipal districts. However, this system will not cost more because in the Dublin area there were always area committees and there will be no need for special offices. Some areas already have offices, for example, Lucan, but there is none in Rathfarnham. There will be no extra area offices until such time as the council sees a need for such an office. In areas where there are no town councils there have always been area committees, but these committees had no power. Now there will be a statutory devolution of functions from the council to these areas which will be called districts. IBEC is looking at the number of areas and stating there will be extra requirements because the area committees were not counted. However, area committees were already in place. The town I am from originally, Clifden, never had a town council, but it had a county area committee. Therefore, this is not creating extra requirements but is streamlining what we have in place. As Deputy Marcella Corcoran Kennedy said, there will be fewer councillors overall. Granted, because of the population of Dublin, there will be more in that county.

The issue of rates seems to be a main focus for IBEC. The streamlining of the enterprise boards in local enterprise offices, LEOs, will focus on having more input from local authority and community members to bring businesses to each county, rather than leaving it to Enterprise Ireland or enterprise boards where the focus is not on local areas. That is good. Also, for the first time, councillors will have the authority to reduce rates by 15%.