John Paul Phelan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I want to put the timeline on it in that when we were at the stage where we are now in Galway in Cork, there was no peace or harmony. There was no one in support of it. The city councillors wished to extend the boundary. The county councillors were, and remain, completely of a different view. The same goes for Oireachtas Members. It has been a process that has gone over a number of years.

There is nothing rushed about this section which talks about the appointment of a joint chief executive. The process in question in Galway has been going on for about four years. The process has not been rushed.

I acknowledge what numerous contributors said about Galway having its own Bill. Galway should, and will, have its own Bill in the new year. The 2019 local government Bill will be a reverse of this. It will be principally about Galway. There will be other local government matters, including the urban areas committees, if we do not reach agreement on them, contained in it. Local government Bills tend to be like that. The reason this section is included is that in the areas where mergers have happened - for example, in Waterford, Limerick and Tipperary - the first thing that happened was the appointment of a joint chief executive. I will point out that in Galway until the mid-1980s, there was one county or city manager for the two positions. It is still the case in some local authorities that people are covering two different areas. In and of itself, having a joint manager is not a merger. It is, however, a stepping stone on the road towards a merger. I am not going to deny that.

I will return to the chronological order in which questions were asked. Deputy Ó Cúiv said that the financial resources must be resolved prior to merger and I am not resiling from that at all. We need to resolve them prior to merger.

I will go into some detail about extra resources. The Deputy is correct that a lot would have been provided in the event of a merger. Following on from the meetings that have taken place with Galway Members and Deputies Darragh O'Brien and Ó Broin, I reiterate that there will be additional funding built in for the county council which historically was the fourth or fifth most underfunded council in the country. From the start 18 months ago when I was appointed to this position, Galway councillors were lobbying me. I do not accept for one minute that I have not engaged, although I have not gone to Galway. Deputy Grealish should note that well in advance of the Galway Bill I will have a full exchange with Galway city and county representatives. That is the right approach to adopt. I understand it did not happen in the case of other mergers, but it is actually the right thing to do and I have no problem in doing it. I have had plenty of engagement with the Oireachtas Members and councillors, formally and informally, in the past 18 months. I will not be withdrawing the section because what we are dealing with is not the Galway merger per se. It is a stepping stone on the road to it and I am not denying or seeking to move away from it. I agree absolutely that the issue of finance has to be resolved and that a road map towards permanent resolution has to be in place before the nitty gritty of a merger can be dealt with.

I was struck by the Deputy Grealish's comments. I was not in my current position and was in a position like that of the Deputy when the council mergers happened in other areas. There is no necessity for the two councils, the two chambers, to merge. I am familiar with the position in one of the boroughs in London, Richmond upon Thames. South London-----