Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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I will put the Senator's points into different groups. With regard to his concerns about the obligations the legislation will impose on local authority members, I know the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donovan, met a number of Senators about the matter and has also met the local authority representative bodies. He is listening to what they have said and we are going to see whether there is any way we can meet the needs that have been identified. With regard to what I want to see happen in local government and in the Dáil and Seanad, we need a composition of people working in our political system that reflects our economy. We need people in local authority chambers who pay rates and we need people in the Dáil and Seanad who have worked in the private sector. If we get the balance wrong, particularly at local authority level, between the requirements people must meet and the time available to them to do it, it will be a further impediment to attracting new kinds of people into political life. I heard of one local authority chamber recently, which I will not name in case I get the exact data wrong, of which it was said that one only member was a ratepayer. That is a real concern for me. We need to have a mixture of people in public life.

I hear what the Senator is saying about the public services card and as it has moved into heightened public awareness, I am certainly aware that we need to respond to those kind of concerns very visibly because the entire purpose of having this card is to get ourselves to a point soon where someone will only have to give their information to the State once and will then be able to access a set of different public services all at the same time. People will really value that when it happens. With regard to how we rolled it out, I guess if we had tried to roll it out in a different way, probably three million of them would not be in circulation now. The card was rolled out in a way that up to last summer, was quite orderly and of which people were supportive. Since then, I certainly acknowledge that we must respond very publicly to the different issues that have been raised because I want to see those cards become an accepted part of how people access public services just like Leap cards, which have been a great innovation.

I touched on broadband when I responded to Deputy Calleary. With regard to teachers, Senator Horkan is right to say that we will not be able to bring in a form of allowance for people on the basis of where they work. We are carrying out work with the Public Service Pay Commission with regard to recruitment and retention in our health service. It will be interesting to see what data that yields in terms of dealing with the point raised by the Senator because if it was to apply to teachers, it would also be pretty likely to apply to people working in our public services in health.

Being able to get the Luas is quite a novel and recent experience for me because it has now arrived in my part of Dublin. I know that during the next while, we will need to provide longer Luas carriages and more carriages. It is the benefit and consequence of more than 2 million people being back in work but on the other hand, we do not want people standing for an entire 30-minute journey given our investment in Luas; we clearly want it to be a better experience for people and I am aware of that.

On the point the Senator made about local authorities, this is something I want to look at under the public service stability agreement now that the agreement has been ratified. Our local authorities should be open for one night per week. People should be able to go into them. I know from talking to local councillors that one of the many reasons someone cannot be a local councillor while keeping a job is because all of the meetings happen during the day. I remember how when I was a member of a local authority, and I had a very supportive employer, it still got to the point where I had to take holidays to go to meetings. I could not have had a more supportive employer. I am of the view that not only for people who rely on public services but also members, we should be able to get to a point where the offices are open for use by members one night per week. In the parts of Dublin with which I am most familiar, the recycling centres are now open on a Saturday morning and the use of them has increased exponentially. People just need one opportunity during the week.

If it cannot be night time, then a weekend slot should be available to be able access a service like that. That happened in several of our local waste depots and has made a significant difference.