Luke Flanagan (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Independent) | Oireachtas source

To add to what Deputy Wallace said, when they are screwing us I can guarantee the Minister that they will not be wearing any protection.

We have fought for centuries to get independence and since we got independence we seem to want to do nothing else but give it back. It is easy to understand why it took us so long to get it in the first place, given that since we have got it we appear not to want it. When the terrible British eventually handed over our country, and I use the word "terrible" because it is all relative in that they do not seem quite that terrible any more, they left us with a system of local government that trusted the people to make decisions and left power in the hands of people the public trusted to give the power to in the first place, but we took that apart bit by bit over the past century until we ended up where we are now. Apparently, the Minister intends to give more power to councillors and all of this will change, but it will not, not in the legislation he is providing here.

At a national level also we were in a huge hurry to give away our sovereignty. We could not do it quick enough and we have now arrived at a situation where we have completely given our sovereignty away. However, ultimately, sovereignty is not something a country does. Sovereignty begins in the mind of an individual. That is from where it comes. For this country to be sovereign and to give real power to its people, the people themselves must realise that they are sovereign and that, ultimately, their ideas are what should be carried out in this country but, sadly, this legislation moves further away from giving power to people.

The idea that the Minister suggests that this Bill will bring power close to the people is laughable. I do not know if people from the generation of the Minister, Deputy Hogan, ever watched "Sesame Street" but that programme explained quite a few concepts over the years, one of which was the concept of "near" and "far". In "Sesame Street" they tried to explain that to five and six year old children in a very simple way. "Far" is explained by a man looking off into the distance at something that is smaller who then runs off - one can hear his footsteps - far away. "Near" is explained as something that is closer, and he does not have to run that far. I imagine that the Minister, Deputy Hogan, would have a good understanding of that concept and given that he should, I would like him to explain to me how closing down Boyle Town Council and taking the power base out of that town will bring the power closer to the people, because it is putting it further away. Either the Minister, Deputy Hogan, does not believe what he is saying or he needs to watch that episode of "Sesame Street" to understand the difference between "near" and "far". If he did, he would understand that he is putting power further away from people. Instead of having a council in their own town, flawed and all as it is, he has created a situation where it will not be there. That cannot be an improvement..

I cannot find in the Bill the new powers that apparently councillors are going to get. There are no new real powers.

In fact, far from giving real powers, all that has happened is that we have done the equivalent of what they did in Windscale and changed the name to Sellafield. One is still left with the potential disaster on one's doorstep. All we get is a change from county manager to chief executive officer. It is a change in name but it is not a change in reality. It is purely tokenism. Even the Minister himself says that it is just about giving it a nicer name. How is that going to help anyone? Apparently the councillors get to choose the new CEO but if they do not choose, it reverts to the choosing body which will keep choosing and coming back until eventually they are forced to take someone who will decide their fate from then on. No more power will end up with the elected representative.

I do not see what the Minister is afraid of - perhaps I can - but from the point of view of developing the country, I ask what he is afraid of. I would suggest he is afraid that it took his party so long to get back into power - that was one hell of an achievement considering who was in government - that once they got into power, the idea of handing any of it away, regardless of what benefit it would be to the country, was just too difficult for them. Instead, they are consolidating power closer to the centre where they currently have the most power. It is not about what is good for the people, it is about what is good for the Government.

Many people will talk about systems of local government and they will complain that they are this or that and generally say there is something wrong with them. The general population will complain about the system of national government and say there is something wrong with it. It is difficult to get the perfect system but no matter what system is in place, if people do not participate, it is irrelevant. It is a bit like a person having a Ferrari - something I never want to have nor ever will have - and complaining that it does not work very well even though he is urinating in the petrol tank. The problem is not the system; the problem is what is being put into it.

It is from this that I make this call. Next May, we will have local elections. People can complain all they want about the system of governance we have. No matter how flawed the system the Minister wants to introduce, it is the system that will be there for the people to use. I am calling on people to participate in that system. The Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Burton, is doing her damnedest to run people between the ages of 21 and 25 out of the country because, apparently, they are too lazy to get a job, even though there are no jobs. I made a suggestion during my speech on the budget and I will repeat it now. Those people in those age brackets should apply for the more than 900 jobs that are up for grabs next May. They should put their name on the ballot paper and participate. Deputy Simon Harris suggested that it seems to be difficult for younger people to get involved in local government because they need to have two jobs. I am sure that will not put off a lot of people who are unemployed. My suggestion is that the tens of thousands of young people go out and run in the next local elections. It is not that complicated to put one's name on the ballot paper. All that is needed is 15 people to propose one's name and those people must be registered to vote in the electoral area concerned. Alternatively, they could get all of their week's dole - €100 - which is all they get from the Government because apparently young people in that age group need fewer calories. I do not understand how that is decided but that is my only conclusion, that people like to eat less when they are that age. They could get all of their week's money and put it down as a deposit and challenge the political system.

I know in my heart that the only purpose in this country for local councillors is to canvass for Deputies in the run-up to a general election. Each of the Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil councillors will grab about 20 people apiece and go out to beg for people's votes. If young people do what I suggest next May and run for election and if, for example, in Roscommon they took ten out of 18 seats, not only would they get a place and little bit of a say in how local government is run - because councillors do not have a real say - the real achievement would be that come the next general election, they will have potentially up to 200 canvassers who will go out and knock on the doors and say whatever it takes to get people to vote for their sugar daddy who will sort them out at national government level, because that is where the power lies. That is what people need to do.

If they do that, there will also be another benefit. Deputy Harris thinks it is not enough to survive on but it is also worth about €30,000 to each of those individuals. They can work in their local community. They can work on changing things, bit by bit, but the big advantage is that with ten Fianna Fáil councillors or Fine Gael councillors - we do not have any Labour Party people in my area because we were always too smart for that - they would then take €300,000 in resources from these organisations. Then we get to rebalance politics in this country and get real change because that is how we will change things. In the run-up to the next general election, those people who have cut the spokes on the political bicycle wheels can go out and they can work on getting into Dáil Éireann where they can change how local government works because local government does not work in this country and it will not work with the way the Government is trying to change it. We need a system similar to the system in Switzerland and many other countries around Europe where even villages with only 100 people have pretty much all the say over how the money is spent.

My frustration about the way local government is run comes from my experience as a county councillor and seeing how money was wasted, hand over fist, and how local councillors had pretty much no say in it, although they did have a say in it if they ignored all the waste, but that is not the way it should work. If elected, we should have total say over everything that happens. Why not have confidence in the people who have been elected? At the moment the job of a county councillor is to ignore the waste and hope then to get a few crumbs from the top table as opposed to pointing out the waste, and instead of crumbs from the top table, there will be loaves and cake. That is what is on the table until they munch away at it and waste it.

One of my first experiences as a county councillor was approaching the executive to ask them if they could open our swimming pool all year round. The people of my area went out with shovels and wheelbarrows and dug out a 33 metre pool in the 1940s. Our town has always had an ambition to have the pool open all year round. I did up a plan which for £250,000 at the time we could have opened it for all year. I was told during my first week as a councillor that we did not have the money for it. In my second week as a councillor the car park behind the local area office, which is across the road from my office, was dug up and re-tarred at a cost of £110,000. The junction on the Galway road into Castlerea ,which had a beautiful peach blossom tree on it, was dug up without asking anyone. They put in a new junction with two car spaces into which two cars did not fit and to this day still do not fit into it. That cost us the guts of another £100,000. A footpath was put down in the town which we did not need because the other footpath was perfect and my local authority, which did not have any money to provide a facility for young people in the town, spent more on three projects that no one asked for, but more to the point, the local elected member did not even know anything about it and was not told about it. Why was it done like that?

I set about trying to change things and asked if we could be informed beforehand and have more say. This did not happen. It was seen as an insult to the executive that a councillor might suggest to them what should be done. We ended up with a car park we did not need - it was grand anyway - and we ended up with a junction that did not work and that looks terrible now in comparison with the way it did. They did not open our swimming pool all year round, last year, as punishment, because people are not meant to point out local authority waste.

They closed it for an extra month during the summer even though the local community proposed a plan to open it longer. We were told, "Sorry, you don't have the proper expertise to run it", even though a member of our committee had a recommendation from the Olympics swimming committee, another member ran three credit unions while another was an expert on child welfare. No council staff member knew anything about swimming pools but officials concluded that they should run it.

There is no power whatsoever at local level and the Government's proposals will not change that. I am not saying that just to have a go at the Government. I was in favour of getting rid of the Seanad and I had no problem with that. Just because the Government parties proposed it, I did not deliberately oppose it. I acknowledged that at least the Government put the Constitutional Convention, flawed and all as it is, in place and it is trying. I am not coming into the House to disagree with what it is planning for the sake of it. I disagree because what the Government is doing will not change anything.

Local government might not be sexiest thing of all and when one starts talking about it, it probably puts people to sleep. It does not sound exciting but it is the most important policy to get right. How we govern ourselves at local level is important and because we are not doing it right, all the energy of local communities is being wasted. Anyone who has tried has given up and, as a result, communities are falling apart. Every now and again, whether it is in Castlrea, Boyle or Roscommon town, a development committee is set up because there is no local democracy to drive the community forward. People get together as a committee and they are all enthusiastic. They set about raising a few quid, a pittance in comparison to what is spent by the local authority. They try to work with local government but the system works against them and bit by bit they are worn down. That should not be the case. If we had a proper local governance system, instead of abolishing town councils, we would expand their number and instead of getting rid of good value councillors, the Government would get rid of expensive councillors.

For example, instead of having 18 country councillors in Roscommon, which is way too many for a population of 58,000, there should be six, one for each district. They should be paid a decent wage in order that they could do the work full time and they should be given the power to elect the chief executive. This would mean that person would be appointed with the thumbs up from the people. That is where the Minister should put the numbers and the eyes and ears of the community. Instead of closing down Boyle Town Council, he should use the money he saves from getting rid of 12 councillors in Roscommon to set up town councils in Castlerea, Roscommon town, Monksland or Ballaghaderreen and give power back to people locally so that the next time a decision is made to rip up a 40 year old peach blossom tree that looks beautiful and replace it with a junction that does not work, local people would be able to stop that before it proceeded. They would have so much to spend then that rather than dig up the footpath with one crack in it or the junction that works or the car park because they will not get the money again next year if they do not, they could spend it well on the local swimming local pool, create seven jobs and make it more attractive for people to come into the town for other services. The next time there is a decision to take up a footpath, it would not be made on the basis of "we have the money and we had better spend it or we will not get it again next year" but on the basis of need. For example, €80,000 could be spent on a youth club or something similar. God love them but the young people might trip on the footpath on the way to it but at least there would be somewhere to go on the footpaths. Under the current system, the footpaths are perfect in Castlerea but there are not many places to go and that is a problem. Instead of building footpaths, which local authorities do over and over again, without any connection to reality, it could concentrate next year on setting up a local market so that people could sell their produce locally as opposed to chasing those who set up one up and working out how to close them down.

The Government's proposals will not change a jot. The legislation will centralise power even more and Government Members will continue to do favours for people locally, securing votes and keeping power centralised while, at the same time, we are in the Stone Age when it comes to local government. Why do they think they have so much money in Switzerland? Countries that have real local government do so well because that is the right way to do things. We will end up broke because it is same old, same old.

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