Mark Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank everyone for their contributions. Deputy Howlin talked about town councils. We look forward to the legislation coming to the Seanad. He made the point that he who pays the piper calls the tune.

Deputy Ó Cuív talked about the starter groups in terms of the lower tier. An idea that struck me as we were talking about that is that in Kenmare municipal district there are six people elected to the full council and the concept is that the next six or seven people on the ballot paper are the ones who will join the top six councillors who reached the quota in the municipal district. For the municipal district, candidates do not need to get 1,500 votes and can focus on an area such as Waterville or Killorglin. Where someone is quite happy to be a municipal district councillor, that gives democratic oversight, which is a good idea in terms of what is coming out of this discussion about what is the next tier. That is the next tier but then we have people who are required to attend council meetings and meetings of the municipal group. Some people do not want to go to council meetings and just want to represent themselves locally.

Deputy Phelan talked about the demographics not being represented because in many instances it is retired people or those living on modest means and unemployed people. He asked how we change that, which goes back to Mr. Dempsey's point about full-time councillors and if that is the way we are going. Nobody will have all that expertise. How do we give them the expertise on financial planning, the environment, planning issues and the legal advice they get? They need to get their own independent legal advice. Without that, they are not able to represent their electorate. The rebalancing of power is what we are talking about.

I will finish on this point. Democratic oversight is key. We have municipal districts and we have councils that are basically just administrative areas that have a veneer of democracy. We need to rebalance that and give democratic oversight. They have the powers but they are not willing to use them. There are reasons for that and there are consequences if you push back, so they need to have independent legal advice.

As part of this process, we will produce a proposal after the local elections. Senator Cassells will do a draft report and have it available for the final session with the Secretaries General and the leaders of the political parties who will be invited. We will present the proposals and ideas of the members of this committee, taking on board what has been said, and ask them to incorporate our proposals into their election manifestos and therefore into some future programme for Government. We have had the reports. The witnesses have all been involved. They have implemented the reports. This is about the future of local democracy, as indicated by the business of the committee. The concern is that in the future we will not have people running for local government in the way we had a decade or so ago if we do not change our current direction of travel. We need to avoid that outcome, which we all fear, that is happening in other countries. The input of the witnesses today has been very helpful and insightful.