Olivia Mitchell (Dublin South, Fine Gael)

I agree with what my colleague said. We are appalled at the prospect of a low turnout in the local elections but should not be surprised when at every turn accountability at local level is being eroded. Not alone have we declared councillors superfluous to the whole system but we have used them as scapegoats for everything that is wrong in the health service.

The reality is that the health service and the health boards functioned well up to the arrival of the Government. Only a couple of years ago the trend in reform was to break up health boards and make them smaller to allow for greater local accountability. This year the approach is to have no local accountability whatsoever. What faith can anybody have in a system like this? This is a matter that needs to be discussed before we wipe away everything that has been tried and trusted over the years.

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