Mr. Terry Shannon:

I was not going to speak but since I have been called, I might as well speak a few words. I come here today somewhat sceptical. I am around a long time and have seen many reports come and go. We have seen the powers of councillors diminished by Members in this House and by Members in the other House. Some of that may be our own fault in that many councillors like to see tough decision being taken by management because management can be blamed afterwards out on the street. We are right at the coalface of administration, local government or whatever you want to call it. A lot of councillors do not want to upset their neighbours.

I have noticed in Dublin local authorities, in particular, councillors taking pride in the fact they have reduced the property tax by 15%. There are massive problems in local authorities and giving back or not collecting millions of euro while at the same time going to central government for funding, which of course it is not going to get, and blaming the Government for a lack of facilities in areas is counterproductive. We need to take responsibility for ourselves.

If it is the role of Government to do a lot of things locally, then let us abolish local government. Let us all go home and let the Government and the Minister for local government run all our cities and county councils. Of course, that is not what it is about. We should be, as is the European mantra of subsidiarity, taking decisions locally as close to the people as possible. Who better to do that than local councillors who are elected by their friends and neighbours? We need to stand up and, at times, be honest with the public and say, no, sorry, we cannot do that for you or we are not in a position to do that for you. Until we have a bit of bravery ourselves, that is not going to happen.

I have been a member of Cork City Council for 25 years. I have less power now than I had when I started. I may have bit more money, thanks to LAMA and the AILG, but I have less power. However, I have a huge amount of influence and that is something people miss. As councillors, we can use our influence with management. Ms Ann Doherty was mentioned. We had our last council meeting with her yesterday. I made the point that she, like other chief executives, had, through executive authority, the ability to impose certain things on local authorities.

Due to that collegiality and partnership, where the council was opposed to something, it did not happen. It is that connection we have which is important. While councillors bemoan the fact we are losing powers, we do not use the influence or network we have either.

Refuse has been mentioned and it is an issue that comes up quite a lot. We had the ability many years ago to collect bins. In Cork, we had a fabulous facility where we gave waivers of 100%, 50% or 25% to people who were not in a position to pay. We had quite a number of councillors wage campaigns telling people not to pay. It was a big issue. Do not pay for your bins, someone else will pay for it - free bins. There is nothing free. Someone pays for it eventually. I remember saying to somebody who had a full waiver but whose son said he would not pay anymore, because why should he, that we had added an extra tally or benefit onto the cost to pay for those waivers. That lady now pays €300 for her bin charges when she had a full waiver before, simply because we were no longer in a position to do it. My point is, if we want all of these powers, which we do, and we want some of the powers people in this House have taken from us, and not supported us on - I am thinking in terms of the JPCs and other areas where our powers have been diminished - we personally must take responsibility as well.

With regard to directly elected mayors, until such time as powers are devolved from Ministers, Departments and officials, there is nothing in it for us as a population. We can give directly elected mayors all the money we like and move around the responsibilities, taking some of them from councillors and management to cobble together this good-looking job. However, the directly elected mayor will be responsible for everything and you are thrown out in five years' time because you were useless simply because you did not have the proper powers. If we are talking about directly elected mayors, let us devolve government from central policy in the areas of health, security, education, environment and the lot. Until such time as we stop the notion of a Minister or TD coming down to announce the roadway or dual carriageway and until we get over that, we will not have effective local government or local administration.