Phil Hogan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Seanad amendment No. 63 provides for the removal of a provision that was originally included in the Bill for the leaders of political parties above a certain threshold of membership in the local authority to be subject to automatic membership of the corporate policy group. This is in response to debates in this and the other House prior to Christmas in which concerns were expressed that there was a risk, with the text as published, that the corporate policy group could lose its purpose of being the corporate management mechanism in the local authority. Rather than run this risk, I undertook to remove any provision for representation of political parties on the corporate policy group. Concerns were also expressed at the inclusion of non-elected people on the corporate policy group in the person of the chairperson of the LCDC, which I have already addressed in a previous amendment. I recognise these concerns and I am now deleting the provision. My motivation behind it was that I often found, as a member of a local authority, that the leaders of political groups who were not on the corporate policy group were left out of the information loop in respect of the plans and programmes being pursued at local authority level. I understand concerns were raised about the definition of a "group" and how we could include all members of the council in some way to ensure they were properly informed. What we will do instead is to make provision in the guidelines to ensure the corporate policy group, through the cathaoirleach or mayor, is in a position to make regular reports to the local authority instead.

I am also proposing amendments Nos. 64 and 65, which are consequential technical amendments dealing with subparagraph referencing.

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