Ms Billie Sparks:

I thank the committee for the opportunity to speak to it today on behalf of the Labour Party. I have submitted, alongside my opening remarks, a copy of our recently published policy paper, which is called Putting Power Back in Communities. The report contains the Labour Party's proposals on local government reform. As Members will be aware, the Labour Party predates the foundation of the State. It is proud to have been represented in local government in Ireland for more than 125 years. It would be fair to say our representatives have experienced many reforms and changes in that time.

An opportunity now exists to radically reform the structures of our local democracy by giving more powers and responsibility to local councils and also to expand the model of directly elected mayors and restore town councils. Due to Ireland's small size, in recent decades, we have seen increased centralisation of powers back to the Custom House from local councillors and a process we call "agencification" in which functions are concentrated into national bodies like SUSI or the HSE. The Planning and Development Bill 2023, which is currently going through the Oireachtas, will further strip powers from councillors, while a new national agency being set up, Childcare Ireland, will again change the local authority functions assigned to childcare committees.

It is our view that many decisions taken in Departments should be more rightly made locally and that the principle of subsidiarity must be embedded into all government thinking and policy decisions. The central question should always ask whether a decision can be made here or on a local council. Our paper goes into these issues in greater detail and, therefore, I will not repeat them or many of the points made by previous contributors. If the committee so wishes, our political director can engage with it further on the ideas outlined within it.

In summary, however, we have four priorities for local government reform. First, we support the introduction of more directly elected mayors starting with Dublin, Cork, Galway and Waterford by building on the Limerick model with increased devolved powers. Second, councillors must be given more control over the budget and finances of their councils, including the ability to raise their own discretionary revenue from sources such as hotel beds and vacant properties, something our Dublin councillors in particular wish to see granted. Third, we recognise the abolition of town councils in 2013 was a mistake and we would restore town councils for all defined urban areas with a population greater than 5,000 and with more than 1,000 dwellings, to strengthen local democracy. Deputy Brendan Howlin published a Bill on this in 2018 but it has been stalled on Committee Stage since then. Fourth, planning powers, which have been stripped away from local authorities, need to be returned and effective planning reform will be needed again by the next government. Other key changes we wish to see include more control for councillors over investment projects in areas such as housing, climate adaptation and transport with reduced bureaucracy in which the Custom House would no longer micromanage delivery of urgently needed homes and other infrastructure. We should trust our local councils and our council officials. We also believe councils should have stronger compulsory purchase powers to tackle vacancy and dereliction, while more general staff are needed in areas such as roads and housing maintenance.

As a party with a long record of service at local government, and with 56 councillors across 21 local authorities, I want to touch on a number of issues that need to be addressed. The imbalance of power between councillors and the executive needs to be changed to recognise the democratic mandate of councillors. On too many councils, the elected representatives can be treated as a nuisance. They should have automatic access to managers and staff in their roles as representatives of the people. Councillors should also be provided with more training and supports. A chief executive should have to consult more with councillors when making decisions. Councillors should have access to independent legal advice. Now is the time to examine how councils can provide staff supports to help councillors with their workloads. We all know the workload of councillors has greatly increased. More administrative resources need to be available to them. This could include a pooled clerical service for managing representatives as well as specialists to support policy work, which has increased through the strategic policy committees. The level of detail now required for development plans, climate action plans, and annual budgets also highlights the need for additional resources.

Being a part-time councillor has become more and more difficult. We have seen excellent councillors step down instead of running again because they feel they do not have the time or the resources to do the job properly. As the general secretary of a political party, I can say that we expend significant resources to recruit candidates for local elections and strive to ensure they represent the diversity of our country. It is fair to say that this work has become more challenging of late. There has been much focus recently on the security concerns facing politicians and the abuse many have experienced. This focus is long overdue but, unfortunately, toxicity and abuse are not recent phenomena. The Labour Party is proud that in the recent local elections, 11 of its candidates were from a migrant background, of whom three were elected. However, many experienced significant racism and abuse, whether through having their posters targeted or enduring a constant barrage online.

For many years, the Labour Party has had an internal gender quota of 40% female candidates for local elections and in the recent elections we exceeded that. There has been significant discussion of gender quotas for local elections. We all know there is not the same link to party political funding that applies for Dáil elections. However, funding was provided by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage to support increased participation of women and diverse candidates in the recent elections. This was invaluable to us in carrying out our work. One mechanism to increase the number of women candidates is perhaps that this funding could be tied to the number or percentage of candidates from a migrant background or women, who ran in the most recent elections.

In conclusion, for the Labour Party it is essential that our local councils reflect the make-up of the communities they represent and that councillors are resourced and have the powers to make the changes their communities need.