Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein)

We should not rush this important Bill through the Oireachtas. It gives far too much power to the Ministers for the Environment, Community and Local Government and Public Expenditure and Reform.

Sections 4 to 8 of this Bill allow these Ministers to facilitate the reorganisation, merger or abolition of State agencies and some local authorities. The Bill can allow for the establishment of ten joint local authorities across 20 county and city councils, affecting 1.25 million people living in counties Waterford, Mayo, Roscommon, Galway, Sligo, Leitrim, Tipperary, Carlow, Kilkenny, Cavan, Monaghan, Longford, Westmeath and my own constituency of Laois-Offaly.

We support reform. As a councillor until relatively recently, I could see the huge need for reform of local government services. However, reform must be achieved through consultation and agreement. Power must be devolved to local councils and communities, not taken away and centralised. Having spoken to councillors in Waterford, Limerick, north Tipperary and south Tipperary, I can honestly say the Minister has failed to win the argument for the so-called reforms that are planned. All that is happening is that boundaries are being moved, reducing the number of elected councillors and, unfortunately, centralising power. This is happening through this Bill but also through other processes such as the establishment of Irish Water. We want to see power being devolved to local level because we believe power and decision making should be vested in local councils and the community. The Bill does the opposite. It allows two Ministers to make far-reaching decisions about agencies, boards and local authorities.

We have put forward amendments in a genuine attempt to reverse some of those tendencies. Having spoken to city and county councillors, I am convinced more than ever of the folly of some of what is contained in the Bill. Interestingly, opposition to the amalgamation of city and county councils in many areas is cross-party. In the case of Limerick, the proposed amalgamation of the city and county councils was originally supposed to make a saving of €20 million, according to Mr. Denis Brosnan, but, as time has moved on, that figure has been reduced to closer to €3 million.

A fear is that the needs of Limerick city itself might be overlooked. The problems facing the city are complex and deep-rooted. While some progress has been made, there are still substantial problems which require focus and a partnership approach and, therefore, gardaí, political representatives, councillors and, most importantly, the community must all be involved on an equal footing. The Government's proposal to merge the two bodies and bring them under a single local authority will serve to weaken the position of the city and its complex problems could remain unsolved.

The Bill proposes to dissolve both Limerick Regeneration boards. Limerick Regeneration has had a chequered past and some would see it as a bit of a disaster. In any case, it has failed to deliver. The big announcement five years ago set out what needed to be done but what we have seen is 1,000 houses demolished and only 34 built, which is a disgrace. I know the Minister of State, Deputy O'Sullivan, has taken a particular interest in this issue since coming into office and, hopefully, there will be improvements. It is unacceptable that people are forced to live in the conditions that are the reality in parts of Limerick city, with vacant houses beside them and so on. The fear now is that moving regeneration back into one big local authority with two different sets of needs for city and county will cause it to lose its focus. While we are not against change, we will oppose this part of the Bill.

The people of Limerick do not need more regeneration boards. They need regeneration to refocus and involve the local community, which it has failed to do so far. Limerick needs the regeneration project to deliver on its promises. A swift move into one big Limerick council will not deliver for the people of either the county or the city.

The story of Waterford is much the same, with cross-party and business community opposition to the proposal to amalgamate the city and county councils. Indeed, the mayor of Waterford, one of the Minister of State's Labour Party colleagues, opposes amalgamation and the city and county managers are also opposed. Those who care to engage with elected councillors in Waterford will understand the fear that as power shifts to a single seat of power in the city, there will be a further loss of resources. Political power will gravitate towards Waterford's urban areas, in particular Waterford city. There are significantly different needs in the city and the county. The towns and fishing villages along the coast have suffered huge emigration and rural depopulation. The amalgamation will do nothing to deal with those specific problems and may make the situation worse. Sinn Féin councillors in the area have in a constructive way proposed the sharing of resources between both local authority services without losing separate structures, focuses and identities, and we support the idea of sharing resources on that basis.

In the case of north and south Tipperary, there is no cross-party support for the Government position and I am told by councillors that no consultation has taken place. In fact, it is an item for debate on the agenda for next Monday's meeting of North Tipperary County Council. To date, there has been no detailed debate in either the north or south of the county. The local authorities are being asked to sign off on proposals that are devoid of any detail. Both local authorities are in different economic regions at present, and I know of no plans to amend that. The councillors I spoke to were unaware that this House was even debating this legislation.

In the case of Limerick, there was at least an attempt to dress it up as a saving of €20 million, although that has now changed. In the case of the Tipperary experiment, however, there will be no savings at all because, given the Croke Park agreement, the staff remain in place while new buildings will have to be sought to facilitate the integration. In fact, this could turn out to be more expensive. The Government's policy of amalgamating local authorities is generally based on an "economies of scale" argument. In other words, local authorities serving a greater number of people result in lower per capita costs for local services. It is important to note this argument has been disputed by many commentators, who state that amalgamation does not necessarily result in greater efficiencies. For example, as the level of demand for services increases, the challenges, complexities and costs involved in delivery of these services may also increase. In addition, the high costs involved in the amalgamation need to be factored in.

I suggest to the Minister of State in a constructive way that I recently spoke to colleagues in the North, where the cost of amalgamating councils and reducing their number from 26 to 15 has proved a massive task and is one of the factors holding up the reform of public administration there. I flag that not to put a spanner in the works. We welcome that the Minister of State's party often refers to what is going on in the North, and I am simply pointing out the pitfalls in this regard.

The Government claims to be committed to fundamentally reorganising local governance structures to allow for the delegation of much greater decision-making powers to local communities, giving them more control over areas such as transport, traffic, economic development and so on, but the Bill flies in the face of this commitment. It is a top-down approach, with decisions being made at central government level and little debate or consultation with local councillors. We propose that there should be a plebiscite on the amalgamations in Waterford, Limerick and Tipperary. Let the Government put it to the people and let those affected decide.

Section 8 of the Bill proposes to dissolve the Fire Services Council, which was set up following the Stardust tragedy. The proposed new structure, under the National Directorate of Fire and Emergency Services Management, appears to be a top-heavy body and appears to include some of the political appointees from the previous structure. It allows for only two representatives of the full-time fire-fighters and two representing those who are retained or part-time fire-fighters, with no apparent proper representation of the public. I welcome the arrival in the Chamber of the Minister, Deputy Hogan. The proposed new fire body will have no county or city councillors' representative on the board, a point I wish to highlight. Will it be just a bureaucratic structure which does not reflect the needs of communities?

The Farrell Grant Sparks report initiated by a previous Minister, Noel Dempsey, proposed a national authority - a new democratic structure overseeing the national standard and national procurement policy. However, this has been ignored. It appears this Bill will replace one quango with another.

The Bill also proposes that the functions being performed by An Chomhairle Leabharlanna will be subsumed into a new libraries development function within the local government management agency. The Minister predicts that the dissolution of An Chomhairle Leabharlanna, could result in savings, in terms of annual operating costs, in the region of €1 million and could yield a further once-off windfall to the State through the disposal of its headquarter buildings in Dublin's city centre. This is naive in the current circumstances due to the collapse in property prices. This proposal should be carefully examined. We spoke to An Chomhairle Leabharlanna about its proposed dissolution and it did not seem to know much about it. It referred our query to the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government and the person to whom we spoke there was supposed to get somebody to respond to our call, but despite two attempts on our part to make contact, the Department has not got in touch with our office. One wonders whether the Minister is running part of the Civil Service or the secret service. We were trying to be open with it.

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