Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Local Government (Establishment Of Town Councils Commission) Bill is being introduced to help strengthen local democracy across the country. The Bill aims to legislate for a key part of the Fianna Fáil general election manifesto commitment to re-establish town councils across Ireland on a fair and equitable basis. The Bill establishes a commission under the Local Government Act to review the geographical distribution of proposed town councils, and most importantly their powers and finances.

Back in 2014, the last Fine Gael and Labour government made the short-sighted and destructive decision to abolish all 80 town councils in the country. I accept that the Minister of State was not in place at the time, but I still believe that it was a very destructive move. In my own constituency it included town councils based in County Waterford, namely Dungarvan, Tramore and Lismore.

The purpose of this Bill is to provide a sound, fair basis to further legislate for the re-establishment of town councils. The main strength of town councils was in the personal touch. One of the town council’s most vital roles was regular liaison with the local area office of the county council on issues such as grass cutting, road and footpath maintenance, signage, area enhancement, weed control. These are the simple things that go unnoticed unless they are not done. The town council has an overall vision for the town. Take Lismore, for example. It is a stunning heritage town that was dependent on its town council for many roles to promote tourism, interact with the Tidy Towns groups and liaise with the local authority. The loss of the town council was widely felt by that local community.

In Ireland towns were used to electing representatives to represent them at local level. These elected people worked for the betterment of their own town and local area. I looked at the county town of Dungarvan, with a population of 10,000 people, and noted that in 1898 local government in Ireland was reorganised and Dungarvan became an urban district. Local elections were held and new urban district councillors were elected. On 23 January 1899 the first meeting of the Dungarvan urban district council was held, and then in 2014 it was all wiped out. This system worked well, and contrary to what was peddled at the time, that we had too many elected representatives, we actually had the lowest number of councillors relative to population in the EU.

Another example is the seaside town of Tramore, with a population of 12,000 residents. It lost their town council and the right to make local decisions. We need local solutions to local problems.

Waterford was really hard hit by this Bill. It is the oldest city in Ireland, but we lost our city status. We had 800 mayors for 800 years. We always had our mayors and a fantastic status. Now we have two mayors. We have a plenary mayor and a metropolitan mayor. Confusion reigns supreme. Which mayor attends which event? It is unbelievable. One could not make it up.

Fine Gael took a slash and burn approach to local democracy. Abolishing town councils has left many urban areas without a voice. It resulted in paltry savings and instead robbed people of local representation and deprived towns of having a council dedicated solely to fighting their corner. Its replacement, the Municipal District system, has clearly left some towns at a disadvantage. Some of the bigger towns may have thrived. However, medium and smaller towns are still feeling the effects of the loss of local representatives.

This Bill sets out a strict timeframe that will have the new structures up and running by the next local elections which are due to be held in May 2019. I am calling on the Government and all other parties to support this important piece of legislation so that local communities can be empowered in the decision making process once again.

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