Ciarán Lynch (Cork South Central, Labour)

Perhaps it is coincidental that local government has suffered during that time and the powers of local authority members have been retracted. The McCarthy report commented on minimising the role of local government. Deputy Connick and I were members of the AMAI before we entered the House and we both know local government has been subject to a process that can be best equated to constructive dismissal. If local government was an individual employed by a company and his or her powers and functions were removed over time, that would be seen as constructive dismissal. That has been happening since the foundation of the State. Local government has been undergoing a process of constructive dismissal led not only by the political establishment, but also by the Department.

The reason there are four local authorities in Dublin is the Department does not want to deal with an authority comprising all four because it would be too powerful to engage with. It does not matter what way the Minister dresses up this legislation or what clothing he puts on it because it is still a slug in a tuxedo. It is the worst form of compromise politics one will ever come across because the legislation has been compromised to such an extent that its objective will not be realised. The Minister referred to Rudolph Giuliani and New York but the powers the Dublin mayor will have will not come within a donkey's roar of those conferred on the mayors of New York or London.

We have arrived at a trade off whereby the Green Party gets to enact the Bill but Fianna Fáil will ensure it does not contain any powers. The Minister can come into the House to tell us he is introducing the legislation but Fianna Fáil backbenchers and Ministers have said, "Off you go, John, talk to the Opposition and everyone else but we know you are bringing in nothing that significantly changes the way government operates". That is the worst type of trade off.

This legislation has been almost three years in the making since it was announced in 2007. The Minister and his officials had a great deal of time to prepare it and that raises two questions. First, why is it so deficient given they had so much time to prepare it? Second, is this a deliberate outcome? George Bernard Shaw once said, "If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter". Did the Department spend three years deliberately ensuring local government would not be reformed or could the Minister not produce proper legislation within that period?

The legislation needs a total overhaul and not just amendment. That is why the Labour Party has tabled an amendment to defer the Bill. It is clear the greater Dublin region requires better than this. All local government reform requires better than this. As previously demonstrated, legislation brought before the House under the guise of reform does not always produce the desired results and we need no look further than the Health Act 2004, which gave birth to the HSE, for evidence in this regard. Something that is presented under the guise of reform sometimes does not deliver as we might expect. I am familiar with the Health Act 2004 because I served as the chairman of the one of the structures created under it. The Act repeatedly refers to the "reform programme" but we have ended up with a bureaucracy that has engaged in everything but reform.

The only guaranteed outcome of this Bill is that it will create an additional bureaucratic layer on top of the existing local government structure in a way that will drain resources from councils, impacting on their delivery of day-to-day services. The House could end up approving the expenditure of €8 million by passing this legislation, thereby ensuring workers will not be available to sweep the streets. Litter wardens or traffic wardens, for example, may be removed from their duties because the four local authorities have to pony up €8 million for this vanity project or trophy legislation introduced by the Green Party. The cost of the legislation must be taken from existing day-to-day budgets.

This is get it over the line legislation. It does not matter whether it is ready because the Minister will try to fix and improve it at a later date. We have had previous examples of this. There is a world of difference between having a good idea and developing it into good legislation. A directly elected mayor for Dublin is a good idea and there is unanimity in the House that this would be a good and positive development. A directly elected mayor is needed who can work within a legislative framework that is ambitious for Dublin and who sees the potential that such a structure could create for the greater Dublin area. It would be a good idea if the framework allowed him or her to realise that potential but the legislation falls well short of that. Regrettably, this is nothing new where the Government is concerned and this is not uncommon for the Green Party. The party had some brilliant ideas in the programme for Government. Their roll-out, however, has been appalling.

The second home tax was a good idea but there are still major deficiencies in the legislation; an amendment I tabled was not addressed by the Minister and court challenges are still outstanding on separations and the way second home tax is worked out for them. When the legislation went through the Seanad, we saw the debacle over caravans and mobile homes. It was a good idea badly managed and we are seeing the same this evening.

The vehicle registration tax proposal was a good idea that was badly managed. The dogs in the street know cars are bought between January and March but at the start of the year the Minister announced that he would change the taxation system for cars in the middle of the year. There was not a single forecourt where a car dealer could sell a car because people were afraid to purchase during that period. That was another example of good legislation, whereby taxation would be tied to emissions, was managed in such a way as to be detrimental to the motor industry. It was already in trouble but this caused even more difficulties.

The Planning and Development Bill that was before the House recently had entirely new sections introduced at the end of the process. The legislation was so badly managed that the Tánaiste had to come into the House to apologise on the Government's behalf.

The Dog Breeding Establishment was a good idea five years ago that enjoyed cross-party support to regulate puppy farms. It ended up being so divisive it nearly brought down the Government because its own backbenchers found it so difficult to support.

The list goes on. My favourite was the Minister's Bill on the international nuclear agreement to which Ireland is a signatory. That Bill proposed to fine someone €5,000 for setting off a nuclear bomb in Ireland were anyone around to pick up the fine afterwards.

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