Kevin Humphreys (Dublin South East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for clearing up the matter.

While listening to Deputy Barry Cowen's contribution I was thinking back on the lack of proper spatial planning in past decades and its effects on rural Ireland and towns and cities. It is a fact that towns and villages are closing down for various reasons, as Deputy Barry Cowen explained. However, it is not only happening outside the M50. Villages such as Ringsend, Sandymount and Donnybrook have seen shops closing, a lack of demand and urban structures breaking down. Dublin is a city of villages and towns, but it is being pulled more into the Liffey Valleys and Dundrums. The social fabric to which Deputy Barry Cowen referred is to be found in urban Ireland also.

We will not see the municipal districts to which the Minister of State referred for seven years in Dublin. We have local area committees, but they do not have the same powers and structures as in rural Ireland. That issue should be considered and addressed. We do have local area committees, but in themselves they will not have the same powers and functions as the municipal districts. I would welcome it if the Minister of State had an opportunity to consider that issue at a later stage. To ask the residents of Dublin to wait for seven years for a mayor and then to ask them to wait for seven years for municipal districts with the same powers and functions as those in place in rural Ireland will gravely disadvantage the towns and villages of Dublin. I imagine Deputy Finian McGrath would agree with me.

See this speech in context