Shane Cassells (Meath West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank all members for their comments, all of which I will try to address very quickly.

I agree with Senator Boyhan, particularly in respect of the finance issue because it is the key difference between what was there previously and what is there now in terms of the effectiveness of the municipal district system. When this was debated in the Dáil, many plaudits were given to the municipal district system and people said it was great. It is not. The lack of financial independence scuppers any opportunity to make substantial change. Anyone who has served on a local authority knows that unless one has financial independence and budgetary powers of significance, one cannot change people's lives or one's community. One is merely talking around those things. The power resides with the executive and that does not change. That is fundamental. Many people have asked if we could not look at a model whereby we would reintroduce them without going into the messiness of bringing back the budgetary system to town councils. If they do not have budgets, they are not effective. The Senator nailed the funding issue in that context.

Senator Murnane O'Connor obviously has extensive experience. We served together at the same time and she also nailed it. Navan and Carlow had similar budgets of approximately €10 million to €11 million. Every Government in the history of the State has been guilty of the following. The old block grant system never kept pace with the changing demographics of town populations. As a town of 32,000 people, we had the crazy situation of getting a block grant which was smaller than the grant provided to smaller towns in Cork because the methodology used in the Customs House to apportion block grants was outdated. The old boundary system did not keep pace with the expansion which took place in the 1990s and 2000s. As a result, large towns were in receipt of block grants that were much smaller than those provided to towns nearly half the size down the country. I welcome the comments of Senator Grace O'Sullivan and I thank her very much. She had a couple of specific questions regarding population. Within this, we refer to section 185 of the 2001 Act, which sets out a threshold of 7,500. We have only used that as a guide and it will be teased out at the commission. That is why I was not too prescriptive.

On the night of the debate, Deputy Penrose spoke on behalf of the Labour Party. While he did not scold me, he asked why I had not come forward with a straight proposal to bring them back in. The fighter in me wanted to say "Yes, let us not set up another commission and just seek re-establishment", but I have acknowledged the deficiencies in the previous system. As such, there is no point bringing something back which had major deficiencies. The only way to tease that out is through the proposals I am bringing in. Even when we had the debate about bringing forward this Bill, people in my party got cross because the 7,500 threshold might exclude some towns that were included previously. Using the previous CSO statistics, I have set out a table which shows that there are 56 towns with a population greater than 7,500 threshold in Ireland. As such, keeping with section 185 of the 2001 Act means 12 towns which did not previously have councils would be eligible. In my county, Navan is obviously a big town, which is fine, but there are also Kells, Trim and Ashbourne. The latter has exploded in size and is right on the border with Dublin. Ashbourne was the second biggest town at 8,000 but it did not have a town council. As such, this will be looking at the new Ireland and new urban centres where national and regional planning have created new towns which need that special focus.

The value of town councils is that they allow us to be serious about the communal spaces people in other countries enjoy. At the planning level, one can identify that and ensure that we have, according to the buzzword that bugs the hell out of me, "sustainable communities". No planner is implementing that in a real sense but that is where one will have it because it will be teased out at a development plan stage with local councillors who know their areas.

A comment was made about looking at examples from the Continent. Deputy Ó Broin mentioned the Spanish context whereby councillors have what are almost mini portfolios. Navan was twinned with two towns in Italy when I was mayor. Only that I was elected to the Dáil, I might have made it a hat trick. The towns were Bobbio and Broccostella, with which we have historical links, including through Columbanus in Bobbio. People from these towns cannot understand the system when they come to Ireland. They cannot get their heads around it. When we go to their towns, we see that the mayor appoints a mini cabinet and that councillors have regard to a housing portfolio and a transport portfolio. The people of these towns are not looking for executives they cannot find because they know which councillor has responsibility for what. If something is not working, that is the person to whom they go. That is proper accountability. While I know some people give out about the American system of government, I have a huge grá for it. There is huge value in that sense of real accountability in one's system of government.

I completely agree with Deputy Ó Broin that we have many commissions, but I hope I have answered as to why we went for this model as opposed to just coming straight in. The Deputy is right that people talk up a good game in opposition. However, I am extremely passionate about this because I know that when it is done right, there are real, positive benefits for the people who live in towns. However, I hope that if we are ever in government, I will have the courage of my convictions to back up what I am saying today. It is something I have been saying for a long time and I do not want to have to eat my words. I want to stand by what I am saying. Deputy Ó Broin mentioned Spain and we had the same examples in Italy. He mentioned the traffic police. I see the local mayor directing police in local towns.

As to the funding model, the local property tax did not exist when the town councils were dissolved. We were still in the household charge scenario and the block grant was a major thing for towns. It allowed them to carry out little projects which distinguished them when the block grant money came each year. Of course, that was subsumed into county budgets. As such, towns at municipal district level do not have the block grant Senator Murnane O'Connor spoke about to carry out those projects. When the local property tax was introduced, one saw the block grant model vanish. As such, the local property tax was only funding what was there. If the two funding streams had been left in place, one would have had an enriched local government system with twice the budget to start to deliver change that would mean something in a tangible way. It was the biggest sleight of hand in that crossover. Of course, the intricacies of local authority budgets and heads of finance meant the ordinary person simply thought the property tax charge was paying for X, Y and Z. However, it was all just going to the revenue side. In any event, 75% of a local authority budget, if not more, is already earmarked for expenditure which is nailed down before the budgetary process begins. That is a big issue also and it goes back to what Senator Boyhan said about real financial independence. We are kidding ourselves if we do not address that.

Deputy Ó Broin referred specifically to the terms of reference and the language that would direct executive functions. He is 100% correct that it would be very insightful and instructive to set that on course. It might scare the bejaysus out of some of the officials who might be looking in, but I agree that it is the kind of language we need. I also take on board what he said about the membership. The timeline is prescriptive at six months. I welcome what the Deputy says about trying to look at this and expediting the pre-legislative side of it. If we could get this out in January and the commission was established, the Minister would have to lay something before the Houses within six months and deal with this before the summer recess. If we remember the timeline invoked on the dissolution of the local government system, the legislation was initiated in October 2013. It was passed by the Seanad in January 2014 for an election that was to be held in June. As such, if people want to get rid of something, it can be done fairly quickly. As such, there is a real and tangible way, if people are supportive, to deal with this before a local election in 2019.

Deputy Ó Broin mentioned cost neutrality. In the old town council budgets there was a thing called "the county demand" or "county charge". As someone who served on both councils, I had numerous rows with heads of finance. One would come to the end of the budget and see that the head of finance had set down a county demand of X that would have to be paid by the town to the county council to balance the books. These things can work if people want them to because they will find a way to get the money back off one in any event.

Deputy Casey mentioned equalisation. The Chairman very kindly let me contribute to the debate with the AILG on the funding strands of local government. Its representatives set out clearly the issues on equalisation, baseline figures and addressing the deficiencies that exist within it.

I welcomed a group here last month from Clonakilty. When the town councils were abolished in 2014, that group got extremely annoyed, as many of us did. Clonakilty had a town mayor since 1605 and the link was broken by the dissolution. Perhaps as a result of the rebel spirit that exists in that part of the country in County Cork, they said "To hell with that" and used the ballot boxes, polling stations and pencils that were there and held their elections the very next day and elected a town mayor. They hold what they call the Clonakilty town council, which is a community council, and I met them here last week. They are very supportive of the Bill. They said nobody in Cork County Council likes them and nobody will help them but they do not care and they continue to pursue it. I welcome that sense of rebelliousness. The people of Clonakilty are watching proceedings this morning.