Shane Cassells (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Cathaoirleach and as rapporteur, it is a great pleasure to welcome all of our guests. As the Cathaoirleach has said, we already have had a number of witnesses before us including councillors from all over the country and public representative association bodies. These have included the Northern Ireland Local Government Association and councillors from Northern Ireland, particularly members of the unionist community. It was significant to have their voices heard in these deliberations as well. This morning's hearings, however, certainly are among the most significant because we have witnesses present who were at the very heart of framing the systems we have as former Ministers of local government. In particular because their tenures all were so recent, that is going to be highly beneficial to us in the work we are doing. I thank them for giving of their time and welcome my own parliamentary party colleague, Deputy Ó Cuív, as well as Deputy Howlin and Deputy Phelan, who I shadowed in the last Dáil. We had many robust exchanges across the Chamber and in the committee rooms, where he killed my town council Bill, only to bring it back with a lot of glee.