Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

As I have said on numerous occasions, and will say again, I am not arguing that every town council should be retained. The Minister said the coverage is 7%. There is a lesson to be learned from some of the functions that town councils carried out that are necessarily going to transfer into the municipal district councils. The county councils tended to focus much more on what I would call hard services, such as roads, footpaths, street lighting and that kind of thing, whereas the town councils would have a stronger role in regard to softer services involving engagement with communities and running events, such as awards nights, tidy estates competitions and so on, that really make a difference to an area. That is the area I am concerned is not going to be picked up by the municipal authorities.

I am very unhappy we cannot debate section 69, which relates to local government funding and Irish water, because the level of discretionary spend will be incredibly important right across the spectrum, including the points that have been made in regard to commercial rates and all the rest. However, the amendments on that have been ruled out of order. This will have a bearing in terms of the kind of services about which I am talking.

It will be very important that the passage of this legislation is a process rather than an event in regard to the devolution of functions. For example, if the Committee on the Environment and Local Government has a role in this regard, or if there is another monitoring agency, which we will discuss later on other amendments, it is very important that this is a dynamic process.

The Minister did not come back to me with regard to amendment No. 15, although he had said he would look at this when we discussed it on Committee Stage. The county council can revoke the delegation but I sought that this would be by consent rather than by diktat, more or less. The Minister might address this point.

See this speech in context