Mr. Kevin Lynch:

I come at this as a senior planner and assistant director with the Southern Regional Assembly with more than 30 years' experience as an official working in local government and the regional sector.

I would like to frame the discussion in respect of where Ireland will be in 20, 30 or 40 years. Let us take some of the key challenges we will face. We will have well over 1 million additional people the next 20 years. Half of those will be part of a natural increase and the other half will be the result of migration. We have massive climate change issues and transportation issue, etc. Ireland needs to transform itself in the next 20 years. The question is whether the current structures to achieve that are fit for purpose. The diminution of local government in the past might have been seen as dealing with awkward questions or difficult issues past and it was seen as avoiding those.

There are a number of factors when looking at it from the regional assembly perspective. First, in policy terms, Ireland has a good overall national policy in the national planning framework. There might be questions over it but it sets out a strategy for the next 20 years but the question is: how is it best delivered? Are the structures there to deliver that properly? The diminution of local government and the role of the councillor within that seriously hinders that development. In my view as an official, the elected members are key to this. It is not just that they hold the officials and government to account but that they provide leadership in facing difficult issues, and Ireland will continue to face difficult issues as we transform. That needs elected members to give that leadership. In my experience, and what I have seen happen, is there is no incentive for a councillor to do that given that the role is largely reduced to lobbying or whatever. Empowerment is structurally important for the country. It needs elected members to play a very important role in that. The national planning framework talks about balanced regional growth. When I say balanced regional growth, that is the entire country, Dublin and the rest of the State as well. That needs to have proper funding brought to the regional and local levels to deliver that. If we follow where the funding goes in fact, it does not follow the policy. I would prefer to see a structure where local governments are empowered with ten-year plans to implement government policy and that would result in far better delivery of that policy. The overly centralised nature of our structures is not efficient in the job that has been given and it does not deliver. Local empowerment is needed to better deliver at regional and local levels.

On the role of the regional assemblies in the context of the local authority system, I do not see any contradiction. The regional level should fulfil its purpose at the regional level. It does not need to be involved in all the areas that are properly the role of the local level. What that means is overall strategic issues or dealing with issues that are cross-boundary or in metropolitan areas where there is grouping needed. There is no need for regional bodies to get involved in every area of work.

Finally on the planning Bill, there is a lot of good there in relation to regional functions but the critical role of regional assemblies is in monitoring the implementation of the national planning framework. A worrying development there is that as part of that process, public bodies and others are required to input the regional assemblies on that as well as local authorities and it is proposed to take that out. That reduces our key connection between the national and local levels and that is very worrying.