Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

On that last point, we need to value democracy, and that includes local democracy as well as what happens in this House. We need to encourage people into politics, and to do that, we need to ensure it is properly resourced in order that councillors can do a professional job and represent people properly. The demands on local councillors are now more severe than they would have been in the past and the way people communicate with councillors is much more immediate in terms of demanding answers. Of course, because of the changes, many councillors in rural areas in particular are representing huge geographical areas. For example, the area of west Cork is bigger than many Dáil constituencies in terms of physical footprint. We need to ensure councillors get the support they need in order that we can keep good people in local government. We should not shy away from that just because it might be controversial.

This is one of the areas I would like to deal with first to ensure we send out a message that local government is valued and will be properly resourced, within obvious parameters and limits, and in a transparent way in terms of how that money is spent. I take the Deputy's point. I hope I can look forward to the support of other parties in the House on issues of general resourcing such as this.

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