Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It is a great pleasure to be back in the Seanad, having been in the Dáil only four years. I spent my first few months in this Chamber, so it is a great pleasure to be back and to represent Fianna Fáil. I offer the apologies of our party leader, who I think is on his feet at the moment in the Dáil. I will preface my remarks by saying that while I have nearly ten years of experience in local government, there is far greater experience here in the Seanad. That is because the Seanad is the ultimate expression of our local government system, with Senators elected in the main by local councillors. The Senators here are in touch with our local councillors every single day not only on local issues but also on the strategic issues. I pay tribute to that expertise and those Senators who are elected by local councils.

In the recent local election, we saw councillors elected in every part of our country, those with great experience and many new faces.

The experience of being in a count centre adds a much more compassionate and human element to the debate that perhaps the online world provides. Even the most hardened critics of each other must stand beside each other at a tally and often with their mothers, fathers, brothers or sisters. Our system of local government does provide that connection and, hopefully, drives out some of the hostility that we see online. Councillors are elected from all parts of Irish society. They are united by a shared conviction that we need an active and constructive council system. We need to do that to improve the communities in which we live.

The series of reforms under the current Government have been implemented. That means local councils have greater certainty in regard to their powers. They also have an opportunity to focus on delivering strategic and community-level services. We believe that we can do more at local council also. I think that the first priority must remain housing and as the housing authority, the local authorities have a role.

Local councils have a far greater range of tools to respond to the housing crisis now than they would have had four years ago. When I was a member of Dublin City Council we had no money to deliver public housing or mechanism to provide different housing, for example, cost rental, affordable purchase, etc. We also had no ability to deliver mixed communities and no partnership other than the executive. Housing for All has given a significant range of tools now to local authorities to respond to the housing challenge. While the criticism remains in respect of the Land Development Agency, in fact the LDA is working as a strategic partner with many local authorities to develop land. Of course if the local authority itself is developing that site then there is no need for that to go to the LDA at all. As I say, the primary responsibility now for councils and councillors across the entire country is to use the tools that Housing for All has provided, to implement them on the ground and to provide the housing that people need.

We have also implemented a range of changes, not only just in the schemes for the delivery of housing but also oversight, with the Minister ensuring that every local authority is actively pushed to increase the level of home building and note the output as well.

Action on bringing back homes in terms of vacant and derelict buildings has been significant, and I recognise the work done by the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, who is beside me, and that of the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy O'Brien. It has made an impact on our local towns. In terms of providing additional appropriate land for housing, that is among the many measures which are being brought forward.

I could talk more about the Town Centre First policy and the many other measures that exist but I will refer to the increase in the pay and conditions for councillors, the sick leave and maternity provisions, and the provision to cover the basics that enable people to communicate with their electorate. The days of standing over the photocopier in City Hall to produce black and white leaflets are gone. We give local councillors more of a remit but I think we could do more. We could do more in terms of pay and conditions, family leave and covering the costs for local councillors.

In my remaining minute and a half I wish to say that the things that we need to improve still remain. For me, the act of people participating in the system of local democracy is key. I saw some really great councillors from all parties not run in the last local elections because, for a range of reasons, they felt that it was not the way forward for them and they could not provide the same impact that they would have had when they first joined the council. That is really sad. We do need to provide more powers for councillors because that attracts strong, talented people who want to make a difference.

On a directly elected mayor, I chaired the Oireachtas committee on the citizens' assembly on a directly elected mayor. It was a very ambitious document. Perhaps it was too ambitious and vague. The Government now needs to bring forward a very detailed legislative outline of what a directly elected mayor for Dublin would look like. Let us not forget that every local authority in the country now has the power to trigger a plebiscite for a directly elected mayor. County managers have way too many powers and almost every Member of the Oireachtas would say so. Local authorities now have the power to trigger a plebiscite in their county to hold a plebiscite for a directly elected mayor, to wrestle that power back from the chief executive. The question is whether local authorities will take up that challenge.