Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

I am pleased to bring the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2012 before the Dáil today. The Bill is required to legislatively underpin any new or existing body established under the Local Government Services (Corporate Bodies) Act 1971 to 2012, if amended, and to facilitate the Department's agency rationalisation programme by allowing the Minister to dissolve, re-organise and merge State agencies.

Before referring to the Bill in detail, I would like to provide some background information concerning the Local Government Services (Corporate Bodies) Act 1971, the purpose of which was to enable the Minister to establish by order corporate bodies to provide to local authorities or to the Minister such services as are specified in the establishment orders. The Act was framed in general terms so that the powers it conferred could if deemed necessary or desirable be used to establish bodies to provide other services for local authorities. It remains the case that the Minister should, with the consent of the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, have the capability to establish bodies to provide services to local authorities for a specific purpose and where it is more practical, efficient and economical to provide such service through a single body rather than have each of the 34 major local authorities acting separately at much greater cost. This approach is in keeping with the programme for Government commitment to make substantial cuts to the number of State bodies and companies.

Seven of the 13 bodies established under the 1971 Act still exist in law, namely, the Limerick Northside Regeneration Agency, the Limerick Southside Regeneration Agency, the Local Government Management Services Board, the Local Government Computer Services Board, the Affordable Homes Partnership, Irish Water Safety and the Fire Safety Council. Generally, these bodies were established to provide specified services for local authorities with the benefit of having a single expert provider rather than each local authority acquiring or providing the service. For instance, Irish Water Safety has provided water safety advice and water safety inspections to individual local authorities who did not have this specialist knowledge at hand. The Local Government Management Services Board provides shared industrial relations advice and representation services to local authorities.

Members may recall that in 2008 the Local Government Services (Corporate Bodies) (Amendment) Bill was enacted. This legislation was required to address the possible unconstitutionality of section 3 of the Local Government Services (Corporate Bodies) Act 1971. This followed advice of the Attorney General on the Health (Corporate Bodies) Act 1961 and the subsequent passing of the Health (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2007 by both Houses of the Oireachtas in December 2007. The Attorney General advised that the possible unconstitutionality of section 3 of the Act of 1961 in terms of health related bodies also extended to local government bodies established under section 3 of the 1971 Act. This arose as the 1971 Act contains similar provisions to those found in the 1961 Act. The 2008 Act confirmed the various establishment orders made for existing corporate bodies.

Article 15.2 of Bunreacht na hÉireann explicitly confers on the Oireachtas the "sole and exclusive power of making laws for the State". In various constitutional challenges over the years concerning whether secondary legislation infringed Article 15.2 of the Constitution, the need for the Government to have a mechanism to establish corporate bodies has been recognised in judgments of the High Court and Supreme Court. In his judgment in the Pigs and Marketing Board v. Donnelly, Hanna J. it his acknowledged that "the functions of every Government are now so numerous and complex that of necessity a wider sphere has been recognised for subordinate agencies, such as boards and commissions". However, as was stated by the then Chief Justice in the judgment in the Cityview Press case, the test of the constitutionality of the legal instrument establishing corporate bodies is that it gives "effect to principles and policies which are contained in the statute itself". O'Higgins C.J. laid down the test to be applied in the case of Cityview Press v AnCo when he stated:

The giving of powers to a designated Minister or subordinate body to make regulations or orders under a particular statute has been a feature of legislation for many years. The practice has obvious attractions in view of the complex, intricate and ever changing situations which confront both the Legislature and the Executive in a modern State ..... The ultimate responsibility rests with the Courts to ensure the constitutional safeguards remain, and that the exclusive authority of the National Parliament in the field of law-making is not eroded by a delegation of power which is neither contemplated nor permitted by the Constitution. In discharging that responsibility, the courts will have regard to where and by what authority the law in question purports to have been made. In the view of this Court, the test is whether that which is challenged as an unauthorised delegation of parliamentary power is more than a mere giving effect to principles and policies which are contained in the statute itself.

This Bill is required, inter alia, to address the legal uncertainty surrounding bodies established under the 1971 Act. The difficulties with the 1971 Act arose as a result of a possible disconnect between the powers conveyed on the Minister to establish bodies under and the clear principles and policies contained in the 1971 Act to guide the Minister in that regard. The intention behind the amendments contained in this Bill in respect of section 3 of the 1971 Act is to set out the principles and policies, in primary legislation, which the Minister shall have regard to in his consideration of the requirement to establish any bodies by way of statutory instrument.It is important to note that the Bill is not being pursued in order for the Minister to increase the number of State bodies under the Departments aegis. On the contrary, it is required to give full effect to the Department's State agency rationalisation programme.

This Bill is intended to facilitate better management of the bodies and activities included in the Bill to allow the Minister, by order, to provide for the organisation and functions of the bodies individually and collectively as may be necessary in the context of tighter funding allocations and achieving greater efficiencies. This is in keeping with the Government's public sector reform plan announced on 17 November 2011. The plan announced an expanded programme of State agency rationalisation within the Department, which will rationalise 21 such bodies into 12.

The seven remaining bodies established under the 1971 Act will be dissolved, merged or subsumed into other public bodies as part of the rationalisation programme. In this regard, the Local Government Management Services Board and the Local Government Computer Services Board are already merged in an operational sense and now operate on a joint administrative basis pending the establishment of the merged body, namely, the Local Government Management Agency, on a statutory basis. The Local Government Computer Services Board and the Local Government Management Services Board provide services to local authorities, including, ICT applications development and support, ICT research, ICT hosting services, enhanced network services, collection of public-facing charges on a shared basis for local authorities, human resource best practice, industrial relations advice and professional representation, research and policy and procurement. These services have continued to be provided by the new Local Government Management Agency. This Bill will give the agency the required statutory footing. The Local Government Management Agency will also take on residual functions from An Chomhairle Leabharlanna. Under this Bill, An Chomhairle will be dissolved as part of the Department's agency rationalisation programme. I will discuss An Chomhairle in greater detail later.

The Affordable Homes Partnership will be dissolved and its functions, as well as those of the Centre for Housing Research and the National Building Agency, have been merged into the Interim Housing and Sustainable Communities Agency, IHSCA. The Housing and Sustainable Communities Agency is currently operating on an administrative basis and will be given statutory underpinning through this Bill.

The Affordable Homes Partnership was established in 2005 to co-ordinate and promote the delivery of affordable housing in the greater Dublin area. The Housing and Sustainable Communities Agency works with the Department and with local authorities and approved housing bodies in the delivery of housing and housing services. The agency brings together under one body a broad range of support and advisory services in respect of housing and other construction-related matters. While this Bill allows for the establishment of the Housing and Sustainable Communities Agency, further and more complex legislation will be required to define its roles and functions.

The Fire Services Council was established in June 1983 and provided a central training programme for local authority fire service officers, providing courses and seminars that complemented training organised locally by individual fire authorities. The council's term of office expired on 30 June 2009 and no new appointments were made to it after that date. The Minister did not re-appoint the council and announced that its work would be absorbed into the National Directorate for Fire and Emergency Management. The national directorate was established on 22 June 2009. It operates under the aegis of the local government division of the Department of Environment, Community and Local Government. The mandate of the national directorate is to create an effective model of integrated leadership, development support and oversight by central Government of local authority's provision of consistently effective, safe, and value-for-money fire and emergency services in Ireland.

The national directorate is a tripartite structure with a management board, a consultative committee and the fire services and emergency management section of the Department. The three components operate as interdependent elements of a functioning national directorate. The management board provides for integration of different strands of service management. It will propose priorities, support policy-making and oversee consistent implementation of the nationally determined priorities and policies.

The consultative committee provides a forum for representation of and consultation with stakeholder interests. The directorate is headed by a national director and is structured around four core business units: an emergency management-civil protection team; a fire safety and development team; an administration team; and a fire service operations team. The establishment of the national directorate was in keeping with the desire to reduce the number of agencies while providing appropriate political accountability.

The Limerick Regeneration agencies were established in June 2007, with a term of operation for five years, to 14 June 2012. The agencies were established to secure the social and economic regeneration of four areas of Limerick city. This Bill will dissolve the two regeneration agencies whose functions will be taken over by the new office for regeneration which has been established in Limerick city. A new interim director for regeneration has been appointed to oversee the transition of functions from the Limerick Regeneration agencies and Limerick City Council and to progress the implementation plans and projects.

The Government decided on 28 June 2011 to establish a single new Limerick local authority to replace the existing city and county councils, with effect from the 2014 local elections. It also approved the implementation of dual management arrangements, whereby the same person would act as manager for Limerick City Council and Limerick County Council in the period leading up to the full merger, at which point the same person would become the manager for the new unified authority. The post of manager was advertised recently. The regeneration office has initially been set up with administrative support from Limerick City Council but will report directly to the manager designate of the new unitary authority.

Irish Water Safety is relatively small, with a staff of six, but there is a large amount of volunteerism in the area of water safety. Its role is to educate people in water safety best practices. It develops public awareness campaigns to promote necessary attitudes, rescue skills and behaviour to prevent drownings and water-related accidents.

I realise I am short of time, a Cheann Comhairle, but will refer briefly to An Chomhairle Leabharlanna. The Bill does not only deal with agency rationalisation in respect of bodies established under the Local Government (Services (Corporate Bodies) Act 1971, but also deals with the dissolution of An Chomhairle Leabharlanna, the Library Council, which was established by the Public Libraries Act 1947. The functions of the council, as set out in section 79 of the Local Government Act 2001, include a number of functions I will not read into the record because of the shortage of time. In addition, in 2008, An Chomhairle Leabharlanna was given statutory responsibility for the operation of the public lending remuneration scheme under the Copyright and Related Rights (Amendment) Act, 2007. As part of the Department's rationalisation programme, An Chomhairle Leabharlanna will be dissolved, with some residual functions transferring to the local government management agency.

As can be seen, the Bill will facilitate very significant mergers of State bodies under the Department's aegis. The Local Government Management Agency will not only amalgamate the Local Government Management Services Board and the Local Government Computer Services Board, but will also amalgamate the residual functions of An Chomhairle Leabharlanna.

See this speech in context