Mr. Andy Moloney:

Neighbours' children will always be that way. Our family never moved. The boundaries had taken away all control from local councillors. That in turn has upset the whole flow of people getting involved in local politics and getting onto local councils, from town councils to other local councils. Some of them might have ambitions to be a Senator. Some might have ambitions to be elected to the Dáil. Being independent, however, on our end of it, you lose a big party backing you, which becomes a hindrance.

Somebody spoke about being full-time. I have done that too. I have worked full-time for 30 years and tried to be a councillor in the middle of it, tried to raise two kids and tried to put them through college. As regards the councillor's rate, it is great that we are getting a few extra bob - there is no disputing that as it is much needed - but it puts us over all thresholds for SUSI grants for putting kids through college. We talk about the far right and the far left. Nobody is talking about the man in the middle. The man in the middle is caught for everything and paying for everything. I did not come up here today just to make a submission. You could say I came up to have a rant. I might be one of those people who does not want to come up here every day and do what Members do. I might say to myself, "Look at what Senators and TDs do." I am not cut out for it. I want to be down on the ground dirtying my hands for my community. I want to be involved with local politics, doing local things. Developers trying to build houses cannot do so because they cannot get the bonds and the funds to start building them due to price increases. For example, we could go into the council, say we have land banks here, there and everywhere and suggest they be given to the developers. Every time they build us a house, they could turn over €10,000 in fees to us. They could even pay us back bit by bit and release five or six houses in a scheme of 50 houses and we all would get our money back eventually. We have the land, which is sitting there idle, but we cannot make that decision at a local level and that is another part of the duties that have been taken.

We talk about losing the JPCs. I never saw what the advantage of a JPC was because a superintendent makes the decision, there are confidentiality clauses and most things cannot be said at a JPC meeting. The members of the Garda have a job to do and they should be supported.

Who came and asked the councillors about doing away with the town councils? I cannot think of one councillor who would have said, "That is a great idea." We were told in Tipperary when we were amalgamated in 2014 that we would save €6 million and it would all go into the roads. We cannot even get a pothole filled, never mind a new road. Those are the facts of the matter.

I have 30 seconds left and I have a lot more to say. We need somewhere along the line to get over the line about the differentiating between what a local councillor does, what a Senator does and what a TD does. The number of emails coming to local councillors on issues of national importance is crazy. There are people I see already out on the campaign trail saying they will change the HSE. Top doctors and surgeons and the Minister for Health could not change the HSE. I do not know what the solution is. It is for someone on a higher scale and on a different pay level. I want to see what has to be done. When the money is decided and when the decisions are made at a national level, they fall down to the local councillors and the local level and then, bang, we hit them then. It is like Kerry and Dublin last weekend. If this is not done at a local level, it will not be done at a higher level. Anyone who takes their eye off the ball in Kerry come next September or August will be codding themselves.