Eoghan Murphy (Dublin South East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Bill and the reform it envisages. Local government is one of the most important areas of reform because of the democratic deficit that exists there. Local elections will be held next year. People elect councillors to represent them in their local areas but once people are elected they often do not have the necessary powers to deal appropriately with local issues. This is evident in cases where an executive manager takes on many of the functions that one would expect a councillor to have. Councillors, therefore, are not able to act accordingly on behalf of citizens. That is what I mean by having a democratic deficit.

When the dual mandate was abolished, TDs were no longer allowed to serve as councillors. What that is a welcome development, we did not give councillors enough powers when we made that separation. We did not remove TDs far enough from the work of local councils.

A great deal more reform is needed to make that separation true and proper. In terms of the democratic deficit, I will give an example. No elected person in my constituency supports the Poolbeg incinerator project yet the city manager, for more than a decade, has presided over the spending of €90 million on that project with nothing yet built. A recent judgment from Europe states that one of the contracts in respect of that project, which is over-spent by more than 300%, is an illegal contract. This project cannot be stopped even though it is the mandate of the locally elected representatives to do so. Their voices are not heard because they do not have sufficient powers which, in effect, is a democratic deficit. The constituents do not want the project to go ahead and neither do local representatives or the city council but the city manager does and, therefore, it is going ahead. In this case, the city manager is not accountable to the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government. We do not know to whom that person is accountable. It appears he is not accountable to anybody, including to the people he is supposed to represent.

This is not just a local issue but one that should be addressed by the Committee of Public Accounts in terms of Government spending. When we try to investigate these areas of Government spending we are faced with another problem in that we cannot appropriately investigate how Government money, which amounts to more than €5 million per annum, is spent by local government. If we are to ensure proper oversight of how public money is being spent and to ensure value for money, we need to provide the Comptroller and Auditor General's office with sufficient powers to investigate this spend.

It is important in seeking to reform local government that we devolve powers. According to various polls and recent referenda results, trust in Government is at a low level. If we are to ensure greater trust in local government, it is important that we devolve more powers to our councillors and local authorities. We must also devolve revenue raising powers. That the Government has rowed back on its commitment that 80% of the property tax raised locally would be spent locally is a mistake. It is imperative that funding is put in place for 2015 and that 80% of the money raised in local areas, be it in Dublin or any other part of the country, is retained locally to be spent on local services. That is what we told the people we would do and the Government should honour that promise.

On the revenue raising abilities of councils, we need to look again at the issue of commercial rates with which businesses have been burdened for so long. In introducing a new revenue stream, such as the local property tax ,we should be helping businesses in terms of rates. I agree with Deputy Carey that the section of the Bill that deals with this issue needs to be improved to ensure we do not damage businesses at a time when we need them to survive and to thrive if the domestic economy is to pick up and move into growth next year, as it needs to if all the other assumptions underlying our budget correction are to be true.

I would like also to comment on the Part of the Bill that deals with the size of a local electoral area, which proposal has been brought forward in previous Bills. I believe a local electoral area that comprises eight seats, of which there is one in my constituency, is too big. I do not believe there is anything local about that type of politics. If we want local people to represent their localities and communities then size in terms of geography does not work in the best interests of local government. This is an issue we will need to look at again in the future.

Dublin needs a directly elected mayor. One of the good things about the reform being introduced is that, along with the local elections next year, we will hold a plebiscite of people in the Dublin regions on the issue of a directly elected mayor, hopefully along the line adopted in London. London is the economic engine for the UK and Dublin is the economic engine for Ireland. We need a strongly elected person with a mandate to move on issues such as planning, transport, waste infrastructure and so on in order that we can have a competitive city, one in which people want to live. The Government's proposal to move to a directly elected mayor for Dublin is a positive one.

I congratulate the Dublin Chamber of Commerce on its good work in promoting Dublin as a region for the country and on trying to bring in those aspects of political accountability that are necessary in a capital city.

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