Mr. Niall Botty O'Callaghan:

I thank Members of the Seanad and fellow councillors. Before I get into this, it is a privilege to be sitting here with county councillors and listening to everything I have been thinking for the past five years. The worry is whether it will get over to the other side. I understand Senators are here to listen and that is great. I am a first-time county councillor but I served on Killarney Town Council for ten years and I was mayor of the greatest town in the world, Killarney. I love it.

There has been talk of online abuse. I will get personal. This is not in my submission. There is no one sitting in this room that had to go into a room on a Wednesday night and close the door and sit on a bed for three hours crying. I am 6 ft. 2 in. and I am tough, but that was the result of the abuse I received. I had a 12-year-old child and a ten-year-old child, and I had to explain to them what was going on because they got it in school. I am sorry but this is very close to the bone. You have Bob Hope and no hope of controlling that. I got interviewed by Interpol and by the Garda. I took it all the way to anywhere I could go but because of the famous mirror of their IPO addresses, you cannot catch them. We should not pretend that there will be a resolution to it because there is no resolution. People have to go into politics with their eyes wide open. I left politics because of it, but after five years I said I would use it to my advantage. I am committing a sin now in respect of my fellow councillors here because I am the only councillor in the State who got elected without knocking on a door, putting up a poster or canvassing. I used online and nothing else. The difference for me is I took the abuse, I toughened up a little bit and I turned into something that I could use to get myself elected. Ask me if I am going for the next election. Yes. Ask me if I am going to knock on a door. No. Ask me if I am going to put up a poster. No. I am going to do it the same way I did before. You can use online to your benefit. At the end of the day, all I can say is that you have to toughen up to the abuse.

My observation is that the powers of elected representatives have been totally eroded and the power of unelected civil servants has increased immeasurably. I served on the old town councils. We had more power to change things in that system. The creation of the CEO posts in county councils changed the balance of accountability and that has eroded the powers of elected officials. In a way, I wonder what this submission will do, as the whole system as it is today is controlled by faceless civil servants who never have to face the general public to be elected.

My solution would include the restoration of town councils and the abolishment of the CEO position. We should go back to the old county manager position that we always had. More powers should be given back to elected officials. The Civil Service should work for the representatives elected by the people.

I do not want to be nice, so I will be controversial. The question I put to the councillors and everyone else here is whether, other than voting for the budget, their councils would keep going without them.

They would. The CEOs would run the whole show. It does not matter. I am putting in a joint motion with Councillor Marie Moloney, who is a councillor in my area, to reinstate town councils and I encourage every councillor to do the same in his or her area. I ask the Office of Planning Regulator to help us, please God. There is no point in even going into it.

I will refer to the community support fund to show how dysfunctional big policy is. I congratulate the Government on the community support fund as it is a great idea and brilliant for everybody. However, the Government said it would give €1 million to a disability group in Killarney, which had planning and everything done. The group was ready to go and wanted to start building but the Government stated it could not give the money until it had spent €1 million. No one in this room has a community group in their area that has €1 million to spend. While I am independent, when I talk to senior Ministers in every Department from every Government party, they say their hands are tied. Who is tying them? It is civil servants who do not understand. A special needs group had to get a bridging loan of €80,000 to get its development going, after getting great money from the Government. It is like turning The Titanicin a small lake.

I thank the other councillors; it is great to hear everybody. I also thank members of the committee. I hope something will come of this as I did not come from Killarney just to talk.