Kevin Humphreys (Dublin South East, Labour)

I welcome the opportunity to discuss local government because it affects people day in and day out in their ordinary lives. I disagree with the tone of the debate earlier which was critical of workers in local authorities. My experience in Dublin City Council is that their performance, response and the quality of service has increased considerably in the past ten years despite resources being reduced.

Deputy Stanley called for a response and for real action. I am reminded from my period in the local authority that real action is judged by the budgets made on an annual basis. There was a great campaign in the Dublin area to save three swimming pools. When the decision was made in the budget to save the three swimming pools the people who were shouting loudest about it were not prepared to make the hard decisions to give the funding to keep those three swimming pools open. I am pleased to report that I was one of the councillors prepared to vote for a budget to keep those services in local communities. Real action means councillors must make those decisions to provide funding for it. There is a responsibility on all of us not to ask councils to do things for which we have not provided finance.

Reform of local government must be carried out quickly and I am aware that the Minister is committed to it. The intentions in the Bill are honourable but I am concerned about putting criteria on local government. Councillors and elected representatives are perfectly capable of judging what they are capable of doing in their local authority areas and the required speed and quality of response. They have a responsibility through the chambers and the corporate committees to ensure the required responses arrive. I welcome Deputy Stanley's contribution. He stated that Sinn Féin is in favour of local taxation. We should not have representation without taxation, but in many cases there is representation without taxation. This means local elected councillors can always pass the buck. They should be able to introduce measures that suit local areas from a recipe of taxation to raise revenues and fix the roads to which Deputy Catherine Murphy referred.

Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan referred to public private partnerships, PPPs. The decision on PPPs was made in this House by the former Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Mr. Dempsey. He told the then assistant city manager, Mr. Brendan Kenny, that PPPs were the only show in town. Local authorities were forced down that road. I recall that during the debate in the local council chamber someone said public private partnerships would not work because of the manner in which they were being forced on local councils.

In coming years with true reform of local government and by moving powers back closer to the citizen we will get a truly representative local government that can set down performance criteria for the staff which is realistic and which will allow local governments to raise taxation and funding and make decisions. I accept the good intentions of the Bill. There should be performance measures but these decisions should be made closer to the ground and we should not remove any further powers from local government.

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