Paddy Burke (Fine Gael)
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I welcome the councillors. This is a very important Bill which will have significant consequences for councillors not just for the foreseeable future but in the long term. I totally agree with the sentiments expressed by Deputies Calleary and Peter Burke and the Senators who have spoken. The two organisations will have to take a close look at the Bill. Some expertise will be required in order to assist them and give advice. They can draft amendments and give them to the Dáil and Seanad. As Deputy Burke outlined in his case, this has consequences for every person that is employed who wants to be a public representative as well.

If the Bill was introduced in its present form it would take a considerable amount of time to train the 900 or so councillors throughout the country. How do the witnesses envisage that would be done? Would it be entirely up to the Department to do it or would it be the role of the local authorities? As has been said, any member of the public could make a complaint and ignorance of the legislation on the part of a public representative will not be a defence.

Senator Conway-Walsh said she got a shock when she went to Mayo County Council and saw the number of auctioneers in it. That could well be the case, but as she can imagine, given a councillor's workload one would probably need to have another job and auctioneering was probably a neat fit. However, that is not the case at the moment because one must be qualified to be an auctioneer and there are educational attainments one must have. It is a completely different scenario now.

In the case of a material contravention or a rezoning under the Bill a meeting might not be able to take place at all because of the presence of a solicitor, auctioneer or landowner from a particular area and if they all declared an interest in it, that they might have an interest in the future or that it might affect them in the future, as the Bill specifies, there might not be any councillors present to pass a material change to a plan. The Bill has very serious consequences for public representatives. It needs very close scrutiny by experts and for amendments to be drafted to it.