Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This Bill is not about local government reform, it is a culling of councils and of councillors and a window-dressing exercise to pretend that more powers are being given to the councils, which is not the case. At the turn of the century the then Fianna Fáil Government held a referendum to recognise local government in the Constitution for the first time while at the same time taking more powers away from democratically elected councils. This Bill carries out a similar exercise dressed up as a reform. It is the same old centralisation of power in the Custom House. No one is arguing that current structures of local government should be left untouched - far from it. We in Sinn Féin have long argued for local government restructuring and for real reform through the empowerment of local democracy but this Bill is not about democratic empowerment, it is about numbers. The Minister's approach is both crude and simplistic, reducing the number of councils and the number of councillors and claiming that local government will be reformed. That is never the case. We reject the proposal to cull the number of councillors to 949. This is a very significant decrease and leaves this State with one of the lowest number of councillors per head of population of any of the OECD countries. We propose that there should be a minimum, and I emphasise a minimum of 1,165 councillors. This is in line with the reform of public administration in the Six Counties.

Clearly, there needs to be a realignment in terms of the size and composition of councils. For example, there are large towns with no councils while far smaller towns for historic reasons, and I emphasise to their credit, do have councils. This also needs to be addressed, but the approach of the Minister, Deputy Hogan, is not realignment and better representation; it is to wield the axe and abolish town councils.

In my constituency of Cavan-Monaghan we will see a significant loss of local elected voices. Across the constituency we will see the demise of a total of eight town councils that are made up of nine members each. That is a phenomenal impact. Eight multiplied by nine is 72 and when the further cull of nine county councillors across the two county council constituency of Cavan and Monaghan is added, we are losing a total of 81, and a Deputy to boot come the next general election. That is a loss of 82 elected voices across that constituency. The consequence of all of that is that access to elected representatives will suffer. Accountability of local authorities, State agencies and Government itself will suffer, and the democratic process will suffer with fewer people directly involved. The Minister should make no mistake about it. The loss of those 81 council seats is the loss of 81 people directly involved in political life in her party, in Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin and Independent voices together representing the various strands of opinion within our respective communities. The by-product of all of that is not only the loss of their likely direct involvement in political life but all of those who would and have come with them in terms of family support, friends' support and others attracted because of their friendship, knowledge and involvement with that individual councillor or candidate - a much greater number again. Political life and the democratic process will undoubtedly suffer significantly as a result.

That said, far more important than the number of councils and councillors is the empowerment of local democracy. We have the least empowered local government and the most centralised State in Europe. Power after power has been taken away from democratically elected councillors and we in Sinn Féin want to see maximum power devolved from central Government to local authorities. These powers include economic planning, waste management, water and sewage and housing. Any reform of local government must ensure the efficient and cost-effective delivery of services, of structures fit for purpose and of democratic accountability at its core.

The Minister, Deputy Hogan's so-called reforms come side by side with more cuts to local government funding imposed in budget 2014. The cuts to the local authority housing budget, surely of great concern to the Minister of State present, are especially regressive given the dire shortage of social and affordable housing and the growing levels of homelessness. This is the real substance of local government service delivery and it is being savagely cut by this Minister and by his Cabinet colleagues.

Sinn Féin would establish local district councils. We would put in place local authority housing trusts to commence a State-wide building programme and develop economic spatial plans. This would ensure power is devolved to the local level, that homes would be built to meet the needs of the 112,000 on the housing waiting lists, and that councils could plan for economic development that would benefit the entire community.

I believe that while there will be sympathy for the Minister's approach among some in the media and indeed some in wider society, there has been a huge demand for less and less in terms of people involved in political life. The overwhelming number of these who will go have given that service for no personal return. They have given it out of a sense of wanting to contribute to the betterment of where they live. That has not been tested fully and properly and we will all be losers as a consequence. It will certainly occur after a short time to those who have clamoured for it because they will realise very soon after the error of their choice.

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