Paul Gogarty (Dublin Mid West, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Will Ms Tütt comment on how discussions are going with accession countries like Moldova and Albania in terms of their regional development? How does it compare to Ireland?

Ms Tütt mentioned what the mid-term review is doing in terms of focusing on more strategic issues like defence and competitiveness. It also mentions housing and water resilience. Many of those areas are not quite regional but are more national, except in the case of very large countries with very clearly defined regions. Focusing on positive elements in some of the proposals, and I take on board what she said about maintaining the regional element and protecting agriculture and the differentiation between cities and rural areas, does Ms Tütt think there is potential, even in Ireland, in terms of defence, particularly with the advent of drone technology? A local airport close to me will be looking at using pilotless craft for medical supplies. We do not have a very big navy and our Army is minuscule. We cannot defend against an invasion of the type we had historically.

With drone technology, however, we could certainly create a deterrent, as could other smaller countries. Do the witnesses see any potential in that?

Is Europe too big and too differentiated to have a common housing policy? If there is a policy of working towards improving affordable housing Europe-wide, can that be brought to the regions?

I have a specific commentary and question for Councillor Coughlan. When I was mayor of South Dublin County Council, I met a counterpart from Denmark who had a chief executive with him and who said, "The chief executive reports to me, I cover this big area and this is what our strategic priorities are." He asked me what my priorities were and I said, "I have a couple of priorities but the chief executive calls the shots." Twenty-five years ago I called South Dublin County Council on a particular issue obstructionist, dictatorial and borderline fascist. Recently, in the case of a swimming pool project in a strategic development zone, the council decided to write to An Coimisiún Pleanála to say it wanted to put something else in instead. It promised it would consult people; now it is doing it unilaterally. So we have unelected officials riding roughshod over the democratic wishes of local communities. We do not really have proper regional government. There was a report done a couple of years ago by the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe which pointed out that we had limited democratic decision-making powers, insufficient financial resources and autonomy and the most centralised system of local government. This being Councillor Coughlan's platform, what should the Government do, or what can it do, in the next five years to try to redress that imbalance? There can only be true local decision-making if we give more actual democratic say to local communities.