Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 106:

In page 73, lines 19 to 34, to delete all words from and including “shall” in line 19 down to and including “subsection (2)).”,” in line 34 and substitute the following:

“shall, prior to the preparation of the draft local authority budget, invite municipal district members for each municipal district in the council’s functional area to make and submit a budgetary submission in respect of their municipal district.
(b) The Chief Executive shall make all necessary resources available to municipal district members to enable them prepare a budgetary submission under paragraph (a).
(c) The Chief Executive shall direct the preparation of a draft budgetary plan for each municipal district following receipt of each budgetary submission under paragraph (a), the provisions of each shall be adhered to unless otherwise directed by the Chief Executive.
(d) In each case where the Chief Executive, in preparation of a draft budgetary plan, deviates from consistency with the budgetary submissions received under paragraph (a), he or she shall state the reasons for such deviation.
(e) Following consideration of a draft budgetary plan under this section, the municipal district members may make amendments to the draft budgetary plan.
(f) The making of amendments under paragraph (e) by the municipal district members is a reserved function.
(g) The chief executive shall incorporate the budgetary plan adopted by the municipal district members in preparing the draft local authority budget (in accordance with subsection (2)).”,”.

This section relates to consulting with the members of the municipal district. The amendment would give them a great deal more power over budgets. I am concerned about the preparation of the plan following the adoption of the budget. It seems to focus almost exclusively on hard services such as roads, lighting etc. A great deal of the work town councils did was on services that relate to people impacting directly on community building etc. I do not see that included, as it should be. There should be some mention of the budget in that regard because it comes with a, perhaps small, cost and certainly a staffing cost. The amendment would move the balance more to the municipal districts as opposed to them merely being consulted.