Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank all our guests for taking the time to be here and for their quality inputs. There is no question about the quality of their inputs and the degree of thought they have all put into them. All of their contributions were interesting. When the general secretaries spoke, they put a particular emphasis on people because they are at the coalface of recruiting and getting people in. All of the difficulties that were cited are at the heart of the difficulty in getting quality people into local government all the time.

The first issue is, of course, the conditions. While we have made great strides recently, we need to go on doing so in order that people of quality will feel they can give the time and the commitment required. Naturally, people have to be motivated but they must also live in the real world. We need to review the conditions on a fairly regular basis.

The participation of women in government and in politics at all levels is critical. There is an unanswerable case for breaking the glass ceiling by putting gender quotas on a statutory basis for local government. That will be a prerequisite. It is beginning to percolate and work in the Oireachtas and it will have to work in local government too.

I meant to say at the outset that this whole conversation has a particular significance in the light of the growth of extremism across Europe. The green shoots have, thankfully, been very thin in this country but they are there. We need to head off extremism and the way to do that is through good local government with women's participation.

The powers are critical. The following is meant as a question or a challenge and I am interested to hear the responses.

Until the day comes that those in local government – I know personally many of those local representatives who are present and they are my friends – are actually imposing and raising tax and justifying it to the people they represent, they will not really have power. The only way it can be done is to have, in some way, an allowance for local taxation against national taxation and in some way to arrive at a marriage of the two. It is the opposite to the American Revolution in that, until those in local government are collecting taxes, they will have no power. It is all a very abstract, lovely, academic discussion but until local representatives are meeting people on the street and explaining to them why they collected money and what they did with it, they will not have the level of relevance they need.

It would be interesting to hear a response on the directly elected mayors. There is the degree to which the witnesses are holding their counsel until they see what happens but I would like to hear their responses on whether we should spread the initiative immediately.

I am one of those who believes we should review the town council question. The tricky aspect, on which I would like a response from the AILG and LAMA representatives, concerns how we knit the municipal authorities into a new system involving the reintroduction of town councils when town populations reach a certain level. How do we get that marriage right?

I see a dichotomy and a way in which regional authorities actually destroy local government. If power is devolved or given up to a regional authority, it is given away from the local councils. I would like the representatives’ responses on that.

As a member of the parliamentary delegation to the Council of Europe, I am very conscious that the view in all reports to the Council of Europe is that Ireland has the weakest form of local government in Europe in terms of participation, numbers, financing and powers, including devolved powers. This needs to be addressed urgently.

I am interested in hearing the delegates’ responses to these questions because they are challenging for us in drawing up our report.