Mr. Kevin Kelly:

I thank the Cathaoirleach. I just have a couple of points to follow from Ms Murrell and from the perspective of the members. I have worked in local government for a long number of years, in Dublin County Council, Galway City Council, Laois, Carlow and Kildare and I am now chief executive in Mayo. Many of the issues that have are being discussed have been discussed for a long time.

I will make a number of comments from my own experience in dealing with this. I looked at the previous discussions on this topic and there was a lot about reserved-executive functions. In my experience and as outlined by Ms Murrell, there is a very good working relationship between the executive and the members, by and large. Sometimes, it becomes an issue not about the reserved-executive functions but about when you start doing something like the county development plan, you are dealing with issues which are national policy, and you are trying to explain to the members why you are suggesting something does not happen or a particular approach is not taken because of national policy. Maybe sometimes that is reflected as the view of the chief executive as opposed to giving guidance.

A very good example of the approach, and I know Councillor Damien Ryan is here, was when we were doing the county development plan in Mayo. We sat down for hours and hours with the members in small groups to talk through all of the issues in detail before we went into the council chamber at all. That is the kind of collaborative proactive approach that happens in most local authorities.

I know from the debates that the issue of planning has come up significantly in all of the contributions. I often think back. I was in Kildare when the Planning and Development Act 2000 came in. It was a completely different scenario at that stage. I remember sending out three local area plans on one day, which you could do at that time. You could not possibly do that now without a team of people to do it because it has become very complex and it is very difficult for the members. I fully appreciate all of the work done by the AILG, LAMA and the IPA. However, more work needs to be done in the context of support for elected members in understanding all of these things that are happening and why they are happening. We have talked about the change from the JPC. We had a discussion in the council chamber yesterday about that. There is probably not an understanding as to what the intent is and why certain changes are happening.

Senator Boyhan talked about policy and representation, which are two things I think are very important. Only yesterday we had a discussion in the chamber with the members. I advocated strongly for the members, at the start of a new council, to take the opportunity from and a hold of the SPCs, take the policy issues they want to consider and work hard on bringing those policy changes through to the council rather than the executive being the ones to bring forward the policy. I fully advocate and would support the members in being involved in a small number of areas where they do that with our support.

On the representatives, one of the things I do is meet all the new staff in Mayo County Council on a continuous basis in groups. I talk to them about the values we have as an organisation, what we want to see and what we want to achieve. One of the points I make is about the elected members, their role as representatives of the community and how important that is. We have talked about members of the public as well. We have to give good customer service. I am conscious of the fact the elected members are there to represent the public and we need to respect that. I encourage to make sure we do that across all staff.

The issue of the town councils has come up quite a bit. I was a town manager for nine years, so I can understand exactly what the town councils could do and the level of autonomy they had. It was disparate, as Ms Murrell pointed out. I think 80 town councils represented 14% of the population at that point in time. Even within that, there was disparity between the former UDCs and the former town commissions. For example, in Kildare, Naas and Athy were former UDCs with the full range of functions. Leixlip and Newbridge were former town commissions with very few functions. Then there were significant towns, such as Maynooth, Celbridge and Kildare, that did not have anything. Ms Murrell pointed out that now all of the areas under a municipal district have an equality. Indeed, in Mayo, in the Claremorris-Swinford municipal district, there is Claremorris, Swinford, Ballinrobe and Ballyhaunis. They had nothing. They had no town council of any description. At least now there is a structure that allows that geographic location to function and have a representational role as a unit.

There is provision related to the independent advice piece in respect of planning legislation. I do not view that as something where the members require that it has to be the chief executive who picks where the independent advice comes from. I think there is methodology for the members to input into that. I fully support the idea of the members having the advice they require to carry out the functions entrusted to them.