Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein)

As a new Deputy, I am very disappointed at how business is conducted here. It would not happen in a local authority because the councillors would not allow it.

I compliment Deputy Niall Collins on introducing the Bill which would form the basis for a more accountable and accessible local government system for both elected representatives and the general public. Positive aspects of the Bill are that it would ensure members of the public or elected representatives who contacted a local authority in writing would receive a written acknowledgement of receipt and could look forward to a full reply within 20 working days. The Bill would also allow for recourse to the Ombudsman, which would be an important course of action as it would ensure accountability and the Ombudsman would keep a schedule of complaints made. Action should be taken against local authorities which continually offend or specific members of management who are simply serving to block responses instead of giving substantive replies to the public and elected representatives. I offer a word of caution: simply guaranteeing a response within 20 days would not guarantee that the required action would be taken. In many cases the original written correspondence from the public requires the local authority to take action on a particular issue. A note informing a councillor or member of the public that work would not be proceeding on a particular issue such as traffic calming, road works or the construction of public housing would not suffice. We need to ensure the Bill would not become a substitute for real action on issues that concern the public and elected representatives.

It is ironic that Fianna Fáil should now see it as necessary to introduce the Bill considering what happened when Mr. Noel Dempsey was Minister for the Environment and Local Government. Successive Ministers with responsibility for local government eroded its powers. During my time the powers regarding taxi regulation and fares, waste management and health were removed from democratically elected councillors. Powers were given to management and bureaucracy was strengthened with the introduction of the post of director of services. I ask the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government to ascertain why local authorities need a manager, a director of services and senior executive officers. There should be a senior executive manager in charge of a local authority to ensure we receive positive replies to our representations. All this served to take power away from the public and those they elected. It is time for this trend to be reversed and I hope the Bill would mark the start of that fight to claw back powers. It must be seen as part of an overall debate on local government.

One of the challenges facing local authorities is presented by the reduction in staffing levels - some have lost up to 30% of their staff. This, of course, is the direct result of the policies pursued by successive Governments. Until last year Fianna Fáil was only too willing to cut back on public spending and reduce the numbers working in the public sector, thus curtailing the work being done by staff in local authority offices. It was mainly front-line staff who were taken out.

I ask the Minister to address the inflated salaries of city and county managers. In recent days we heard about the salaries and number of days leave available to managerial staff and I again appeal to the Government to address the issue. If the Bill is passed, with further deadlines and demands being made on decreasing numbers of staff, it will only serve to make messengers of elected representatives and further frustrate the public.

The programme for Government outlines a commitment to local government reform, yet we still wait for the Minister to start that debate. We have tried to open it up at Question Time since the start of this Dáil. My party wants to play a positive role in it and the sooner it starts the better. We have always promoted the strengthening of local democracy and accountability. This means putting those affected by decisions at the centre of the decision-making process. It means devolving power to the most local level. In practice, it means allowing local authorities to be given power to draft waste management plans and make planning and development decisions without too much interference from the top in order to benefit all those in our communities, not just developers and those with money. It is also important that the layers of bureaucracy that continue to stifle local democracy are removed and that the corridors of power are opened up to the public. Councillors who are directly elected need to have real powers.

Local government reform is on the agenda in the Northern Ireland Assembly and my party continues to play a positive role in the process. We may not get everything we want because ours is one of four parties, but we have tried to make a positive impact. Lessons can be learned from the process of political reform in the North. It is ironic that planning and other powers are being devolved to local authorities in the North, while 90 miles down the road the Government in this state continues to centralise power. I have found it very frustrating as an elected member of a local authority to watch power being centralised to the Custom House.

The Government has further undermined local democracy by failing to introduce legislation to regulate the collection of household waste and allowing a race to the bottom to continue in that industry. It also failed to accept our amendment to the Environment (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2011 which would have given the power to elected representatives to draw up and implement waste management strategies. That role was taken away by Mr. Noel Dempsey.

Following the recent budget the Government decided to cut local government funding by €166 million. The gap in funding is to be made up by the new household charge. This is dependent on a 100% collection rate of the charge. One county manager pointed out that it was questionable whether this would happen. This is the modern day equivalent of the poll tax introduced by the former British Prime Minister, Mrs. Thatcher, which had to be scrapped and modified. We will continue actively to oppose this charge and will be working with the public to overturn this regressive, unworkable and unjust charge.

While welcoming the Bill, Sinn Féin sees it as only the start of a long overdue debate on local government reform in the State.

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