Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am not a member of the committee but I am thankful for the opportunity to speak. I support the proposal by Deputy Cassells. The Labour Party was in government at the time and it was a mistake to abolish town councils. We acknowledge in our party that it was a mistake. However, they do need to be reformed. That is the main point I wish to make. Some very small places had town councils and large places did not. My native county of Limerick had no town councils under the old system and yet it includes large towns like Newcastle West, Abbeyfeale, Kilmallock and Castleconnell. Limerick had no town councils whereas much smaller places in other parts of the country had town councils.

My question is whether Deputy Cassells has a figure in mind as to how large a population should be to justify having a town council. We need to be precise on these matters. It has to be a system that is fair to the whole country and is not just ad hoc.

I agree with Senator Boyhan on the need to provide real powers and real funding. However, I note that during the mid-1990s, a devolution commission was established. It made a number of recommendations on the devolution of powers to local authorities, not just town councils but county and city councils as well. However, the recommendations were never implemented by any Government since then. There is a reluctance from central government to genuinely devolve powers to local authorities. There is also a problem with local public representatives. It is a big step to go from being able to support one's constituents in everything on a local council to being obliged to make decisions about how one allocates the budget. I was on a twinning committee at one point with a town in Brittany. I was chair of that committee, and we visited the town in question.

The local councillors made decisions and, for example, a local deputy mayor was in charge of the roads or housing budget. The councillors had to make and stick with decisions regarding on what they were going to spend the money and they could not support everything. A cultural change is required at local and national level. I hope that the Bill will lead to a genuine decision to implement change not just in respect of town councils but also in regard to giving genuine powers and responsibilities to local government because we are very much out of step with other European countries in that regard.