Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State and his officials from the Department and to thank them. I will not say too much about this circular and statement, other than that I very much welcome it. I acknowledge the Minister of State's enormous and progressive work to support councils across the board. I like that emphasis he has put on collaboration across those in parties and those who are not, which is where local government is at its best. There is great collaboration across local government in Ireland by groups which may have more geographical connection than political connection, which is important. Anything that supports councillors in their work in local government is important. This is only one aspect of the jigsaw in terms of supporting councillors. The Minister of State has dealt with pay and conditions and there are ongoing issues there.

There is also the issue of mental health. There are there are many reasons people have to step down. Yesterday, I looked at the number of councillors who have stood down. There is a much higher proportion of women than men, which is another interesting indicator, who have left since the elections in 2000. I take a personal interest in ringing them up, particularly if I know them, and asking them why. I spoke to a woman the other day who said it was because of the physical stress of it. There is the issue of social media and there were many challenges around local government. They thought, “Do I really need this?", given they might have a family and other things to be doing and that they could be doing a part-time job and getting twice the amount of money. There are many reasons people have to take a break from a job. It occurs in teaching and in all professions, and this is no different. We need always to bear that in mind. However, I genuinely thank the Minister of State, who was a councillor for many years and became embedded and steeped in local government in that time. He can see the issues and brings that to this Bill. The Association of Irish Local Government, AILG speaks well and strongly of the Minister of State and his proactive engagement with it, and I acknowledge that.

My parting words are to say this is great, but sometime in the near future, it is to be hoped, this committee, the Minister of State, his Department and his officials will start to focus on how we can devolve more powers, not fewer, to local authorities, our city and county councils. We are taking powers away from them regularly. For example, yesterday in the Oireachtas through the Higher Education Authority Bill, we took sitting city and county councillors off the education authorities. Their veto was blocked in terms of disposing their properties to the Land Development Agency. There may be good reasons for that, some of which are logistical or long term, but if we are talking about supporting local government and local councils, we need to start talking now about devolving more powers from central government to local authorities. Commensurate with those additional powers come responsibilities, and I acknowledge that, too. I know the Minister of State is keen, and he has constantly emphasised, that if we are going to give more powers to local councillors, responsibilities will come with those, as will supports and further training so that they can become better councillors and better practitioners in advocating real democracy and real engagement on the ground within local communities.

I will finish on that. I thank the Chair for his indulgence as I went off on a strand. Ministers come and go but we are indebted to a committed, professional core personnel within the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. There have been big changes there in recent years. I acknowledge those who have moved on and those who are moving up because this committee has a good, strong relationship with the Custom House. I have been a member of this committee for a good number of years and I think it is a good relationship and one we need to continue. Well done to all involved.