Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Local Government Bill 2013. I commend the Minister on getting the Bill to this Stage. There has been agreement across the political divide for many years that local government needed to be reformed. We all hear from our constituents. We know it ourselves as practising politicians. We hear it from our colleagues who serve on local authorities. We can debate reform until the cows come home, but at some point we have to act. This Bill takes the most radical reform of local government in many years and makes an honest and admirable effort to improve structures at local government level.

I welcome in particular a couple of elements of the Bill. First, I welcome the appointment of chief executives rather than county managers. When I was elected to Wicklow County Council in 2009, like many other councillors I thought I would come in and change the world. Councillors do their best for their constituents but they are in a structure where they have to go cap in hand to unelected officials at local level to try to get things done. Many of those unelected officials are very competent and diligent people. However, politicians seek a democratic mandate from their community to represent them, and the community holds those politicians to account for actions at a local level. They often do not realise the little influence that councillors can wield at times compared with council officials. It is important that we try to redress that balance in this Bill in order that the power is vested with the people elected at community level every five years, and the officials work in a professional and competent way with them. The balance of power must be tipped in favour of those democratically elected by their communities.

The establishment of the position of chief executive rather than county manager is a step both in symbolism and in action towards giving more power and more responsibilities to elected members. Chief executives will have a number of statutory obligations towards elected members which the county manager does not currently possess. Elected members of any given council will also have to approve, by more than 50% of their votes, the appointment of the person nominated to be chief executive. I welcome that, which is a step in the right direction. People can say all they wish about politicians, including councillors, but at the end of the day, these are people who ask their community for a mandate to serve them. It is very important we do everything we possibly can to ensure there are structures in place which allow them to have meaningful influence on their communities and their counties.

I also welcome the establishment of local enterprise offices. We cannot have a situation where enterprise and business development in a community is siphoned off to an agency on one side. Many county development boards and county enterprise boards have done great work and many fine people have served on them, but we need local enterprise and business solutions to be at the centre of a functioning local government system. All the answers to this country's economic challenges cannot come from the IDA, Enterprise Ireland, or from the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation. Many of the solutions are coming from communities across Ireland. When councils make decisions about a range of issues, we need enterprise and business considerations to be at the heart of those decisions. By having local enterprise offices in the local authorities, working side by side with the other directorates in local authorities, we will put business and local enterprise at the heart of local authority decision-making. That is to be welcomed. We need to look at as many opportunities as possible to involve in these local enterprise offices local business people and local people in the community who have innovative ideas on how to create local employment. I would be interested in discussing that further with the Minister.

While I am not a Dublin-based Deputy - I live in the commuter belt - the plans for a plebiscite for a directly elected mayor of Dublin are a welcome development. I will respect the decision of the people of Dublin, and I commend the Minister on putting this question to them. We need a strong, directly elected chief executive with a mandate to get things done. If the plebiscite is passed and that system beds down, the Minister should be ambitious and should look at the possibility of having directly elected mayors or chief executives of other councils. Why can the people of Wicklow not elect somebody directly if the people of Dublin can? That should be kept under review as the process evolves in Dublin.

The plans to establish a national oversight and audit commission are very welcome. I serve on the Committee of Public Accounts and there has been cross-party criticism about the lack of scrutiny applied to how funds are spent at local level. Funds at national level are well scrutinised. This does not mean they are not wasted at times, but people are brought before the committee and are held to account for how they spend money across different Departments and agencies. When money leaves central government and goes to local authorities, however, there is not that same level of transparency. The national oversight and audit commission is very welcome. The establishment of audit committees at local level is very welcome, but I ask the Minister to explore how this commission could be linked with the Committee on Public Accounts and the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General. Perhaps the report of the audit commission could come before the Committee of Public Accounts, but given that much of this money is collected centrally and given out from various central sources, it would be important that there would be a roll-out at national level to scrutinise that.

I would like to express one concern about the age profile of the councillors we are going to attract. If somebody wishes to be a councillor in Wicklow, he or she must be able to attend meetings on a Monday afternoon at 2 o'clock. I know two individuals - one wanted to contest an election for Fianna Fáil and one for Fine Gael - who are unable to contest elections. They are both fine town councillors but they cannot contest the county council election because they have careers. With no disrespect to any demographic, we cannot have a situation where people must be retired, independently wealthy or self-employed to serve on local authorities. We must look at how we are going to provide for people who do not want to be full-time politicians because they have other careers. They have skill sets, talents and ideas they wish to bring to local government. We must look at how they can play a role as well.

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