Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I note section 2 says it relates to members of a local authority. Irish public bodies, as we know, is an umbrella movement loosely representing all local authorities and operations of local government. It took some time for the Minister to accede to the request to have a separate mention for local authority members. It rings hollow because local authority members and local government have been decimated by the previous Government with all the attacks on and the banishment of local authorities as we knew them. In my county, there were five or six of them. It has happened to town, urban and district councils such as the borough council for Clonmel which used to be and may still be the biggest inland town in the country. There is a commitment in the programme for Government to hold a plebiscite to see if they could be reinstated, if the public wanted them, on a no-cost basis. I have not heard a word about it since the Minister closed the books that evening, almost two years ago now. There has not been a mention.

The acceptance by the Minister of this amendment to the Bill is certainly welcome because in the times when I was a member of the local authority, I did not feel that Irish public bodies was that caring and nurturing of local authority members. One could get lost in the system and the whole cumbersome nature of IPB and its dealings with Government, Ministers and officialdom at a national level. It was a national organisation, as we all know, but sometimes it did not represent its members.

It is important for any legislation to address any person who is elected to a local authority. Local authorities are now nearly a third of a Dáil constituency.

They deserve to have their place rightly recognised but they have been stripped of most of their powers. They are nothing like they used to be. They were tighter districts before the amalgamation and everything else. That was certainly the case in Tipperary. As I stated, the councils are now nearly a third the size of constituencies. There are two towns in my local borough district: Cahir and Clonmel. There is a huge difference between them. Clonmel is a town of 20,000 people, while Cahir only has a population of 4,000. They each have different services and expectations of members. The Minister is making faces at me as if to say that I am rambling but I am not. Local authority members must be respected. They have been overloaded with huge districts, a lack of recognition and a lack of respect by many officials in many counties. A workshop is held behind closed doors before every meeting members attend to discuss matters. The manager must get what he or she wants and any member who does not agree with that will feel the brunt of it. Representation is very difficult. That is not what democracy is about. We must have respect for those put themselves forward and get elected. Many notable men and women served as councillors long before we were around. It was not about remuneration but, rather, public service.

Fine Gael disbanded town councils. There is a commitment in the programme for Government to borough district councils. Many local authority members would like to go back and serve on the districts which were previously in place. They would do so without remuneration but, rather, just for the sake of having some say and coherence in the overall planning, running, maintenance and image of their town and district. A borough used to be only the town and its immediate environs, and its boundaries would extend less than a mile outside the town. Boroughs now extend 30 miles one way and 25 miles the other way. The images of many towns, and the towns themselves, have been completely diminished and they are suffering badly as a result.

I welcome that on this Stage the Minister accepts that local authority members will be specifically mentioned in the Bill. They have been written out of too much legislation and that is happening more and more on a daily basis.

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