Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome everyone. This has provided a lot of learning for us. The witnesses are clearly very experienced in local government and its administration, including city and county councils, and in the political parties. They have wide experience. The presentations were highly informative and I thank them for their valuable contributions, which will feed in to our final report and recommendations.

This committee has examined in great detail the functions of local government and the relationship between the elected members and the executive council. The work of this committee can potentially be a new starting point for positive, progressive, resilient and effective local government. The relationship between the elected members and the executive council must be recalibrated to allow councillors to perform their key reserved functions. As we all know, there are reserved functions and there are executive functions. I want to dwell on the latter. They broadly cover three areas, namely, policy, oversight and representation. Councillors bring a lot to the table in terms of policy. That is their elected function and it is a reserved function. I therefore appeal to those on the executive side of local authorities to remember that members are elected with an overall policy function. They also have an oversight function and, as the witnesses will know well, many councillors sit on the various audit committees.

The audit committees have improved substantially. This is an area about transparency and about accountability. Councillors again need to be supported. They are not busybodies and they are not pushing beyond their limits, rather they are empowered in legislation to have oversight. Perhaps the most important aspect is representation. Councillors have the right to be, and are elected to be, public representatives. With that comes responsibilities but also co-operation and collaboration between the executives in supporting them with their work. I had an email from a councillor yesterday who told me he has been waiting weeks to meet officials about housing in his local authority. All he gets back is that he needs to engage in the CRM process. Our ask is that we have systems in place. If it is not teams, it is community relationship management structure or whatever, but again, we have got to talk to people in local government. Local government is about people. Politics is all about people. It is all about relationships. If you do not have those two you are going nowhere, so it is irrelevant. That is really important.

There have been many recurring themes in all our deliberations about the need for independent financial advice. Councillors are not accountants, or the majority of them are not anyway. They are not planners, architects, engineers or lawyers, so there is a real need to look at a bank or panel of experienced, independent people who can give advice when required. It is not always required, but what is clear from my engagement with councillors, city and county, is this real need for valid, independent financial, planning and legal advice.

I also take this opportunity to say this is a very important Chamber and I am glad we are having the meeting here. The majority of Senators take their seats here because they are elected by many councillors. That is a good relationship and one we need to keep. It keeps us on our toes and keeps us relevant.

I will finish by thanking the AILG and the LAMA for their engagement on policy. They are feeding up and feeding in to us on policy. Next week we will sit in this Chamber on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to look at the biggest piece of legislation, possibly, in the history of the State, namely, the Planning and Development Bill 2023. There is an issue of concern.

I take this opportunity to congratulate Ms Murrell, chairperson of the CCMA, on her appointment as the new chief executive of Cork County Council. I also take the opportunity to wish Ms Ann Doherty well. She has been an outstanding public servant and chief executive of Cork City Council. The relationship between our chief executives and councillors is a good one. Let us start to recalibrate that dynamic relationship between chief executives and elected members of councils.