Niall Collins (Limerick, Fianna Fail)

I commend the Office of the Ombudsman and the Ombudsman, Ms Emily O'Reilly, who is providing an outstanding service. No Deputy who has had dealings with her office could claim that they were anything but good. We need to promote the case for granting the Ombudsman further powers and for fostering and enhancing her role.

The main aspect of my Bill has affected me and other public representatives across the country, including Deputies. We are constantly told by people that they have contacted their local authorities with queries or requests but have not heard back. It is not good enough in this day and age. Local authorities point out that they adhere to their customer charters, but such charters are not good enough. The Bill can be enhanced and amended if the Government sees fit to give it more teeth.

We must own up to the fact that local authorities do not engage adequately enough with sections of society. Responsibility for this falls on public representatives, who find that they must chase up responses on behalf of members of the public and ourselves. This is unnecessary, wastes time and leads to duplication, resulting in a cost to the system. How often have people contacted Deputies or local authority members with this problem?

My Bill is simple legislation. Yesterday, I listened with interest to the Minister of State, Deputy Brian Hayes's comments on the Croke Park agreement, which is relevant to local authorities. He made some correct points concerning reforms. The Bill is reforming legislation. I welcome the Minister of State's indication that the Government is on the road to realising necessary reforms in public services and local authorities this year. He made all the right sounds, but we will need to hold him, the Government, the social partnership process and State agencies to account for the delivery of necessary reforms.

Subsequently, I listened to the manager of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, one of the largest local authorities in the country. On national radio this morning, he stated that he had not been able to realise what he termed some fairly minor changes - the lengthening of the working week from 32.5 hours to 35 hours and the standardisation of leave arrangements - under the Croke Park agreement because it could only move at the pace set by the slowest institution of the State that was minded to change.

Through this legislation, the Croke Park agreement and any other legislation, we must set our minds to bringing about real reform. The Bill sets out to make a reasonable achievement.

It provides that where a member of the public or a public representative writes to or otherwise contacts a local authority, he or she must receive, within a reasonable period of time, an official acknowledgment of that communication, followed by - within another reasonable timeframe, that is, several working days - a substantive reply to the issue raised. This is already happening in certain sections of some local authorities. It is compulsory, for example, in planning departments, because planning is governed under legislation. In the case of my local authority, the housing department has a formalised system for acknowledging correspondence and issuing replies. However, it does not happen across the entire system. If we are going down the road of streamlining local government, we must introduce an effective system of communication between local authorities throughout the State and the public they serve.

The Ombudsman can fulfil many roles. One of them relates to the legislation which dominated the commencement of proceedings this morning, namely, the Water Services (Amendment) Bill. I listened to the Minister's interview yesterday on my local radio station, Limerick's Live 95FM, in which he named Deputies Ó Cuív, Martin Ferris and me-----

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