Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the officials for their phenomenal work on this ground-breaking legislation. I thank members for their engagement and, in particular, the Cathaoirleach for his stewardship.

I will take this opportunity to advise the committee of a number of amendments that I propose to introduce on Report Stage. The structure of the Bill provides that, where a mayor takes up office, he or she will be responsible for the executive functions of Limerick City and County Council, as set out in the Local Government Acts and other enactments. However, a range of functions will remain with the director general, which we have just discussed. They relate to staffing and human resources, the role of Accounting Officer, the administration of schemes and grants, enforcement, etc. These functions are listed in Part 2 of Schedule 1. Given the complexity and wide-ranging nature of the work involved on a cross-departmental basis to examine all legislative provisions and identify the relevant functions that are appropriate to the director general, the full range is not fully reflected in Schedule 1, as published. This work is at an advanced stage, though, and I will table the necessary amendments to update the Schedule on Report Stage. I have given a commitment that we will provide them in advance to members to enable them to be considered in depth.

There will be a need to table two minor technical consequential amendments to the Bill on Report Stage. In addition, I intend to table amendments relating to the fresh start principle, which is provided for under the Affordable Housing Act 2021. It is intended to clarify the fresh start principle and its application by amending the Act to confirm that a fresh start event will reset a person’s status to first-time buyer after a divorce, separation, bankruptcy or insolvency regardless of the number of properties the person owned previously, thus ensuring that a person who once owned another home would not be excluded under the fresh start principle.

My Department has recently become aware that there may have been a technical error at the time section 160 of the Local Government Act 2001 was amended by section 61(1) of the Public Service Management (Recruitment and Appointments) Act 2004. The amendment changed the original body with which there was a requirement for the Minister to consult when declaring qualifications for certain local government roles from the Local Appointments Commission to the Commission for Public Service Appointments but it should, in fact, have been changed to the Public Appointments Service. Since 2004, consultation has inadvertently been taking place with the Public Appointments Service. It is intended to amend the Local Government Act to reflect the consultation practice that has been in operation to ensure the validity of various declarations, which will not be held to be invalid by reason only of the fact that consultations with the Commission for Public Service Appointments did not take place. It is also intended to include a specific provision setting out that this amendment will not affect any extant legal case.