Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)

Better local government could be described instead as worse local government; it can certainly be described as more centralised local government. What Deputy Perry said is true. The only reforms introduced under this heading have been the removal of the dual mandate and electronic voting. These can hardly be regarded as major positive impacts on society. However, they create a centralised version of local government. I can see the day fast approaching when one person, with one computer, will be able to control every local authority in the country, this House, its voting system and the voting system outside it if the present Government has its way. They did that in other countries, for example, in eastern Europe after 1945. They had a more crude system for doing it, but it was the same thing. It was centralised power, authority and local government.

The much-vaunted better local government about which we have heard so much simply means more bureaucracy, centralisation, managers, delegation to managers, internal conferences, and interminable meetings. When a member of the public goes looking for a member or official of a local authority, they are invariably at meetings, usually a meeting of themselves. They are meeting a group of their own people, despite the fact that they work with them in the next room.

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