Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Mr. Gavin, Mr. O'Leary and the team. They have done a lot of work and I thank them. The very professional way they laid out their report helps to communicate the message and to ensure it is not lost on people. We live in a very visual age and it is all about key messaging. People have to understand things pretty quickly.

I have a few things to say. I am in favour of any devolution of further powers and functions to local authorities. It makes sense. We have the most centralised government in Europe, as we know. It continues to be that way. We continue to remove our elected city and county councillors from State agencies and State bodies, which is very frustrating for many councillors. Like most people in this room, I have been a councillor and I have travelled that journey and seen the powers continuously eroded. I am a strong advocate for local government and a particularly strong advocate for our city and county councillors of all parties and none.

I will touch on three of the assembly's key recommendations. I will start with the last one first, recommendation 18, which is about the plebiscite. I have spoken to most of the councillors who were there. I would have liked to have seen more councillors on the assembly and I made a case for that in the Seanad, although that was rejected. However, those I did talk to were clearly exceptionally influential both in the formal deliberations of the assembly and in the tea breaks and so on. They had many a laugh and many a story about how they used their power of influence. I have no doubt that they had a great influence in this assembly. There were very few of them but they were very influential and let us not underestimate that. I have heard from the councillors, who comprised only a fraction of the total membership of the assembly, and from other members of the assembly because you come across these people. It is great to see Ms O'Connor here. I met a number of people on the assembly who had never spoken about local government who now attend public gatherings and meetings. That is empowering in itself and I am particularly chuffed at that. I hope some of them will consider running in our next local elections because they have had experience and have got a taste and feel for it. They have really bought into it. Are we clear that there was a very strong commitment in the conversation, forgetting about the percentages and the votes, to have a plebiscite first? Is that Mr. Gavin's understanding?