Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)

I welcome the opportunity to discuss local government and the household charge. I commend the Minister on his initial steps towards reform of local government, in particular, in Limerick and in Tipperary. The country has too many local authorities but the bigger problem is the existence of pseudo-local authorities, such as community groups, partnerships, county enterprise boards, county development boards, organisations acting as a local authority that are not. I commend the decision to include responsibility for the community sector in the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government and included in the Minister's brief. I hope he will merge the two sectors together to create a streamlined process.

However, the rush to abolish town councils is slightly premature.

See this speech in context