Kevin Humphreys (Dublin South East, Labour)

I commend Deputy John McGuinness on the time and effort he has clearly put into formulating this legislation. It has provided a welcome opportunity to debate several important issues in the area of local government reform. Deputies Eoghan Murphy, Thomas Pringle and Mattie McGrath, in particular, raised issues regarding accountability at local government level and the powers of city and county managers. Deputy Eoghan Murphy referred to the €81 million expenditure associated with the development at Poolbeg. I listened with interest when the Secretary General attended a meeting of the Committee of Public Accounts to address this issue and was struck by the weakness of the response in that regard.

I was first elected as a city councillor in 1999. Deputy Mattie McGrath spoke about a resistance to involving councillors in the budgetary process. It has been my experience, however, that in many cases, local councillors do not exercise the powers at their disposal, the agreement of the budget being one of the most significant of these. This notion of officials elbowing elected councillors out of the way is quite disturbing and I would be concerned that councillors should allow that to happen. Agreeing the budget and holding management and officials to account is one of the fundamental functions of local authority members. If we want more accountability in respect of the €4.5 billion that is spent every year at local government level, we must empower councillors to make their contribution and to hold management to account for decisions made. Councillors often tell me that one of the greatest frustrations of their role arises from the legislative stipulation that while they may be members of the local audit committee, it is not open to them to assume the role of chairperson and thus steer the direction of the committee's investigations. Money is being spent every week and month on the Poolbeg Peninsula project, for instance, and the local council has no power to call a halt.

We must review the powers assigned to management, enhance the powers of local councillors and ensure city and county managers are accountable and answerable in the same manner as chief executive officers. With that end in view, I urge the Minister to speed up the process of local government reform, part of which should involve an enhancement of councillors' existing powers to hold management to account for every euro that is spent. That would help to prevent a recurrence of events such as those in Donegal to which Deputy Pringle referred. It is a cause for concern that only one councillor in that instance articulated how much money was being spent on consultants to examine the reorganisation of management. One wonders what the other councillors were doing. Each role in government, both locally and nationally, brings with it particular responsibilities. We in this House must ensure that local authority members have the power to exercise their responsibilities effectively by holding management to account.

As a Government Deputy I do not propose to support the Bill, but I thank Deputy McGuinness for bringing it to the House. I take this opportunity to clarify that I do not undervalue these Friday sittings. In fact, I have attended every such sitting and have contributed to the debate on every proposal that was put forward. We have dealt with some excellent Bills, the current proposal being another such. The direction and ideas contained therein must be taken on board and worked back into the system. I ask the Minister of State to take on board the sound ideas contained in the Bill with a view to progressing them.

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