Shane Cassells (Meath West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank and welcome the great spread of speakers tonight from all of the political and geographical backgrounds in the country. I also welcome their support. The understanding, breadth of knowledge and thought put into the debate by speakers was fantastic but not surprising given that we are public representatives who are passionate about our counties and towns. Those who spoke know the local councillors gave good service and a sense of purpose to residents in their areas. I listened to Deputy Munster speak passionately about her town of Drogheda which I know well and worked in with the Drogheda Independent. I have seen the impact in that large old borough town. The Government's Deputy Fergus O'Dowd spoke only in the last couple of weeks under a Topical Issue matter to call for its status to be returned. He spoke passionately about his town that night. In the context of the Government being in synch with its own Members, that Deputy spoke passionately about retaining the status of Drogheda, for which I commend him.

I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Damian English, for his measured comments this evening. The take of the Minister, Deputy Murphy, on proceedings was disappointing and, more than that, surprising. To say there was no justification was an amazing statement. The justification comes down to the provision of services and the fact that one would have finances and a statutory budget. The most important thing is the difference between a statutory budget for one's town council area and what is in place now where local authorities throw a couple of hundred thousand into a discretionary fund which has no impact whatsoever in a meaningful sense. It is about the ability to be able to draw down one's own finances.

On the retention of the local property tax, which was not in existence at the time of the abolition, that will be an interesting dynamic in terms of the 10,000 homes that are in my town and what it would mean if we had a statutory town council and the money was retained within the area. There would be a dedicated spend in that particular area. I mentioned the commercial rates earlier and how equalisation is hitting every business in an old town council area. That is the justification. If it cannot be understood by the Minister, there is something wrong at his end.

In terms of the county councils, there is a huge urbanisation drive in the country. This is driven by a planning philosophy in the Department that is concerned with creating critical masses of population under the national planning framework to progress major capital infrastructure. I do not disagree with the principle; I totally agree with it in terms of having dedicated services supporting dedicated centres of population. However, if we are to have that, we need an equitable system of government to support it and to ensure the huge towns we are creating have proper representation and that they can react to the issues and, more importantly, set out a vision for those towns so that we can help families. The Minister of State and I saw a massive explosion of population in our town over a ten-year period and we saw people trying to react to it rather than lead from the front, which is what these councils would do.

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