Barry Ward (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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On my own behalf, I will ask a few questions. Subsidiarity is an issue that has arisen quite a lot. I remember when I was a member of the Committee of the Regions. The fact that we have five or six former members of the Committee of the Regions on this committee is a testament to the fact that that interest continues. The disparity between me, as a local councillor in Ireland, and colleagues who meet from around Europe in terms of their powers and resources is enormous. Ireland practices subsidiarity all the time at a European level. We love, as a country, to talk about subsidiarity because it brings power to this building or, more importantly, to the one across the road. Yet, within the country there is a terrible hypocrisy because we exercise very little subsidiarity in this country. I am conscious of colleagues here. I spent 11 years as a member of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council and I complained about this when I was there. I have complained about it a lot since I have been here. There is a massive democratic deficit in terms of our local government. Notwithstanding Article 28A of the Irish Constitution, which gives that position and power to local government, Ms Coughlan said that "Ireland is one of the most centralised states in Europe". That is absolutely correct. Councillors, in terms of resources, are the hardest working politicians in this country but they are relegated to being local ambassadors to the chief executive of whatever local authority of which they are a member. I always say to people in my area that the chief executive or director of services is never going to knock on their door and ask what they think about something yet councillors do that all day every day. Given that, and given that we do not exercise that kind of subsidiarity in this country, is there a role for the Committee of the Regions to impress upon not just the Irish Government but Governments around Europe the importance of empowering local government to actually make subsidiarised decisions at a local level?