John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

My information, from dealing with councillors and officials at local level, and councillors of every political party, is that it is proving to be a bit of a disaster. Foremen within the county councils will say that they have still not sorted out their boundaries. There is a row over budgets. The urban centres that are associated, for example, Kilkenny city versus county, are not functioning as they should. It is almost impossible for the elected members to do their business in each of these electoral areas. From a people's perspective, they believe that they have been short-changed in relation to the structure of local government. It is becoming a real issue politically for people who are tapped in to local communities and local government.

I draw Mr. McCarthy's attention to the statement made by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Howlin, in which he raised doubts about how the new system was working. From my perspective and through dealing with this committee, I wonder about the costs involved in all that in terms of the changes that are being made, the regrading, and the spending and division of the budgets. How well is that division of the budget serving local communities? Are we getting real value for money or are further moneys being taken from the top to feed into bureaucracy at local levels? Is less being spent on the various programmes of work within the local authority areas? I suggest to Mr. McCarthy that if he asked most councillors and, indeed, most officials, if they were to be straight with him, they would raise a huge number of questions over what is now going on at local government level. My concern, apart from the value for money aspect, is that it has disconnected local communities from what they had before in terms of their sense of local democracy and their input and their importance within it.

I use the example of Kilkenny Borough Council versus Kilkenny County Council again. The geographical areas that the foremen and engineers within council areas are asked to service are just ridiculous. I know that is not Mr. McCarthy's call but I am giving him feedback on it. The budgets of urban areas have been cut so significantly that local authority employees do not have the range of work to do. That is a serious problem. It is not just about the structures and the political administration or the work for councillors, it is about the administration of those areas. There was a comparison made to Cromwell in Kilkenny, which I do not want to repeat here, but something like that was mentioned, to the effect he did less damage than this local government Bill. I will discuss this further with Mr. McCarthy.