Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Amendment No. 61 is very comprehensive in that it covers everything from the economy to community development and upskilling. I realise this is local government legislation as opposed to planning legislation but they are intertwined. There is ongoing criticism that development plans are, in the main, physical and there is an expectation of delivery of items included in them which often does not happen with regard to facilities essential to the development of a community.

I have been through numerous development plans and it takes quite a sizeable effort to construct them. We do not want legislation which states very good things but does not deliver in practice. I accept the Minister is doing workforce planning in the Department, but if these plans are to be constructed in a real and comprehensive way that add the layer we need so the local government system is a facilitator of the community and voluntary sector which is so successful in the country it will require people to put them together. In some local authorities this might be possible but others are very deficient in terms of numbers relative to the population they are trying to serve or may not have the disciplines within them. I am very interested to hear what the Minister has to say. What we do not want is a great debate on the issue and for the Minister to have worked on a lot of detail and then for it to fall by virtue of the fact there is no prospect of its implementation because of insufficient staff. There are wide variations in staffing. Meath County Council has half the staff of Kerry County Council but 30,000 or 40,000 more people live there. These variations make a difference to the delivery of services and to the depth and quality of what can be delivered at local government level. If we are to get beyond the point of only speaking about physical plans and building communities as opposed to buildings and structures this aspect will have to be facilitated by way of ensuring it is capable of being delivered in terms of having staff to do it.

See this speech in context