Jackie Cahill (Tipperary, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I refer to the review of constituencies published tonight. Thankfully, Lower Ormond has been put back into Tipperary, with which the people of Lower Ormond will be extremely happy. The report stated that it was due to a lot of lobbying and recommendations which were made to the Commission. Inexplicably, however, it has taken another 4,500 out of Tipperary and put them into Limerick City. Already tonight, I have received four or five calls from people in Newport who feel extremely aggrieved. While lobbying thankfully brought back Lower Ormond, the Commission has failed to respect Tipperary's county boundary and gerrymandered it once again. This is not acceptable to us. We have had people feeling extremely disenfranchised over the last five years. While they have brought back Lower Ormond, they have taken out Newport town. I will be making my views known strongly to represent the people of Newport who cannot understand how this decision was arrived at.

I commend Deputy Cassells for bringing forward the Bill. It was part of our election manifesto. As a party, we are trying consistently to get our manifesto into legislation. The only people the abolition of town councils suited were council officials. Once a month, they had to come into seven local urban or borough councils in Tipperary, depending on the size of the town, and answer for the way money was being spent and the jobs which had been done in the previous month. They had to say what jobs were up for completion in the next number of weeks. They knew they would have to come back within four weeks to give an account on the progress made on different projects. We had seven councils in Tipperary at Nenagh, Thurles, Carrick-on-Suir, Clonmel, Templemore and Cashel. These were towns of varying size, but each one feels aggrieved at the loss of democracy they experienced. The former Minister, Commissioner Phil Hogan took away this democracy from us with the stroke of a pen but what was saved was minuscule. All that was achieved was to take power away from local people. Whether it was TidyTowns or some other programme, people had nine people on a council to whom they could go. There was always a representative on the next street or down the road to whom they could make a point. To remove that democracy for no gain is hard to understand.

I look forward to the commission. In our manifesto, we mentioned a figure of 7,000 and we need to revisit that. It would not satisfy a lot of towns in Tipperary which had urban local councils. We can do that when the commission has been established and we can get our urban councils back in place. It is essential for local democracy. I commend Deputy Cassells on the Bill which is good for local democracy and the people of our rural countryside.

See this speech in context