Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 1:

To delete all words after "That" and substitute the following:

"Dáil Éireann declines to give the Local Government (Restoration of Town Councils) Bill 2018 a Second Reading in order that the issue of town councils can be considered in the context of the report ‘Municipal Governance – Districts, Towns and Local Electoral Areas’ on potential measures to boost local government leadership and accountability, and to ensure that local government funding, structures and responsibilities strengthen local democracy, including the issues of town or borough council status and reduction in the size of local electoral areas, which is currently under consideration by the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government."

I will go back to my council days as well to get the amendment procedures corrected. I welcome this opportunity to discuss important issues relating to the local government system, to hear the views of Deputies, and to share with the House the Government’s proposals for the future of local government in Ireland. One thing that most of us value is the work of local government, be that in the former town councils or the existing local authority areas and local councils. Most of us present served that apprenticeship and it is without doubt a major benefit coming into this House as a Deputy and going on to be committee chairmen or Ministers or Ministers of State. The opportunity that one gets at local government level is second to none. It gets a person ready for a proper career in politics and political representation. We cannot value that enough. Many of us have developed good working relationships at that level as well and that has benefits in this House because we carry that with us right the way through. Local government has achieved much when it comes to politics and we all value that. We might differ over the different versions of it and disagree with certain parts of it but we all recognise the importance of local government one way or the other. It is important that we remind ourselves of that as well.

The Bill proposes the re-establishment of town councils, as recommended by a Local Government Commission based on the census report on population distribution and movements published by the Central Statistics Office. We are opposing the Bill, mainly for reasons of timing, as the matters raised are part of the report on local government matters and have been submitted to the Government and the Oireachtas under the Programme for a Partnership Government. There are also parts with which we might agree with but for now we think the timing of it is premature. I am instead proposing that Dáil Éireann declines to give the Bill a Second Reading in order that the issue of town councils can be considered in the context of the report, Municipal Governance - Districts, Towns and Local Electoral Areas. This examines potential measures to boost local government leadership and accountability and to ensure local government funding, structures and responsibilities strengthen local democracy, including the issues of town or borough council status and a reduction in the size of local electoral areas. That is currently under consideration by the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government.

The report is with the committee, having been submitted to it for consideration in April. It is appropriate to allow the committee time to complete its deliberations before making any decisions. The Government's, Action Programme for Effective Local Government - Putting People First, which was the platform for the wide-ranging reform programme implemented in 2014, set out an ambitious vision for local government to be the main vehicle of governance and public service at local level, leading economic, social and community development, delivering efficient and good value services and representing citizens and local communities effectively and accountably.We intend to further that objective, building on the significant improvements that have been made in recent years. All of us can see how local government has stepped up in the past number of years to deliver a much wider range of services.

Local authorities have been involved in driving both social and economic development and have had some great success, and that should be recognised. They are taking a greater role, and in my view are much more of an authority than they used to be and are much more relevant across the board in many aspects of the development of our towns and counties, and rightly so. They are the key vehicle for making things happen at a local level. I have certainly seen the benefits in recent years.

The next stage in that process is the report to the Government and the Oireachtas under the programme for partnership Government on potential measures to boost local government leadership and accountability and to ensure that local government structures and responsibilities strengthen local democracy. The programme signals this process as the next wave of local government reform and indicates specific issues to be considered, including reducing the size of local electoral areas and the question of town and borough councils. To date, several papers have been submitted to the Government and to the Oireachtas for consideration. In addition to the paper on municipal governance, papers on local authority boundaries and local authority structures have also been completed. Indeed, the recommendations in the local authority structures paper are the main substance of the Local Government Bill 2018 which will be before this House in the coming weeks. My colleague, the Minister of State at the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Phelan, also will bring forward proposals on local authority leadership, governance and administration - the issue of directly elected mayors - in the coming weeks, and a final paper examining devolution of functions will also be presented to Government in the coming weeks.

To achieve the vision set out in the 2012 policy document, the structural framework must be fit for purpose. Accordingly, a core element of the reform programme was structural reorganisation, involving the unification of certain city and county councils, and replacing 80 former town councils by municipal districts integrated with the county councils in a new, innovative, system of governance. This builds on the Barrington committee report of 1991 which identified the need to overhaul sub-county arrangements including the replacement of existing town authorities and also highlighted significant concerns with the existing town council system, including the issue of double representation, where towns have separate councils in addition to representation at county level. Outdated boundaries and other anomalies have now been removed. The new system provides more effective and community-focused decision-making and implementation. There is full integration of local authority resources across each county and elimination of duplication both in administrative and electoral terms. The new municipal district system is also closer to the European norm, covering the entire territory of each county, in contrast with the previous unbalanced arrangement of isolated town councils, while rural areas, many town environs, and some larger centres lacked municipal status and local governance. Indeed, a 2013 Council of Europe report specifically welcomed the decision to replace the town council system with the new municipal district arrangement, particularly because it ended the dual franchise in towns, which the report described as unfair.

An important benefit of the new system is a more appropriate assignment of local authority functions. Local matters are dealt with at municipal district level, while those of wider strategic application are decided at county level, without duplication between county and district jurisdictions. In effect, there is now a dual system of governance but an integrated administrative structure in each county, which maximises operational efficiency while ensuring devolved decision-making throughout the county.

Turning to the Bill itself, I must record that it has technical flaws, particularly the fact that it is linked to repealed provisions of the Local Government Act 2001. Substantial redrafting would be required if it were to progress. However, there are more fundamental issues in principle with the Bill. Insofar as there are shortcomings and scope for improvement in current local government arrangements, these matters can, and will, be addressed without resorting to the re-establishment of an array of town councils, if that is what this House decides. Nobody has said that everything is perfect. Ongoing reform is required and we must constantly tweak the system to make it better. The Bill relies on a local government commission to define the town councils. The local government commission is provided for in sections 89 to 95 of the Local Government Act 2001, which have not been commenced and were repealed in 2014; the commission does not exist. Even if the local government commission was in place, the Bill provides for the commission, and not the Minister, to make orders determining what constitutes a town, including defining the boundaries of a town. The Bill proposes that each town council would consist of one local electoral area. Having more town-focused local electoral areas was part of the terms of reference for the independent local electoral boundary review, which is now complete. Local electoral areas will be now be provided for in legislation, in line with the boundary review report recommendations, and these recommendations do not align with the proposal in the Bill that each town council would consist of one local electoral area. It would not be possible to implement the Bill's proposals based on the 2018 local electoral area boundary committee report.

Arguments being made for restoring the town councils, such as a lack of investment by local authorities in towns, are not generally supported by facts. My home town of Navan, for example, has been very well served by the municipal area approach, although I recognise that the boundary of the municipal area in that example is married closely to the new town boundary, as well as some rural areas. It is one of the municipal areas we got right, and that has been recognised with the changes that have happened with the boundaries. We have tried to recognise those larger towns and realign the boundaries to match up with some of those towns.

Concerns about lack of urban focus, as well as geographically large municipal districts, have in the main been addressed by the local electoral area boundary review of 2018, published in June 2018, in line with its terms of reference to define distinct urban-focused local electoral areas as appropriate in respect of towns where the population was equal to or greater than 15,000. This provision also applied to county towns where they did not meet the population criteria.

There is little general support for the restoration of town councils, even among councillors, as has been confirmed on several occasions by comments from the Association of Irish Local Government. We have met that group at various meetings and it has said that it is not interested in restoration, and has said the same publically. We have to have this conversation, but-----

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